


Erised: A Mystery of Times

by TamChronin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2019-06-12 13:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 49,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15340569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamChronin/pseuds/TamChronin
Summary: Peter Pettigrew has died in his last year at Hogwarts, saving Snape's life! This isn't even the only thing wrong with the universe. Will they find out who is responsible, before the world as they know it is destroyed?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please grant some allowances as this was written before DH came out. Unfortunately, I did not have any method of time travel, myself, and this was merely my flight of fancy while I anticipated the end.

They say that there is a theory of time travel, where the one going back in time is like a stone being thrown into a flowing river.  There may be ripples, but the water continues flowing after a moment as if nothing had happened.  There was once a theory put forth by Muggles that time travel would be more like throwing a rock through a sheet of paper, and could destroy all of reality, but luckily we proved that wrong long before Muggles came up with any such analogy.  So, if we look at the idea of time as water endlessly flowing downstream, with ripples and pebbles and weather constantly changing things, you can imagine what would happen if you threw enough pebbles in, or even one very large one, in some cases.

You'd change the course of the river, eventually.

You'd change the course of time.

So what, then, is a dry riverbed in the landscape of time?  Does it still exist?  What happens to the fish, the algae, or the leaves floating gently over the top?  What happens to the rocks you've thrown in?  Eventually, there are consequences.

But if that's all you've ever known, if you're a native in one particular river, and don't know what it's like downstream, what will you think?  What will you know?

There's a reason time travel is so highly regulated by the Ministry of Magic and their counterparts throughout the world.  Nobody wants to be a fish out of water.

 

## Chapter One

## A Most Unfortunate Accident

 

The night was dark, despite the full moon hanging in the sky.  It wasn't dark because of any real lack of light.  There was simply an oppressive feeling to the air, and a darkness of spirit loomed over Hogwarts that night.  Howls came from the direction of Hogsmeade, and everyone, at least the students, knew that they would only get louder and closer as the night wore on.

Despite this, Severus pressed on.  He was no stranger to darkness, and his curiosity was enough to drive him onward despite the growing dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach like a cold stone.

 _Bezoar - a stone found in the stomach of a goat with magical properties, including neutralizing some poisons._  

It was somewhat random, but it was the sort of thought that had him above the rest of the class in Potions.  He couldn't help it.  These things simply stuck with him, making strange associations at even stranger times.

Perhaps the thought was not entirely random, however.  That's what it felt like he must have, sitting there and even making its way up so it was hard to swallow around.  He ran his fingers through his hair nervously, convinced that this was just another of James Potter's stupid pranks, but wanting to see for himself, anyway.  Why else would they have planted the Whomping Willow there, if not to guard secrets and treasure?  He couldn't take the chance that they wouldn't be there upon searching, even if the stupid git had been the one to tell him.  There'd been that strange intensity in Potter's eyes, after all, unlike any of the other nasty lies and tricks he'd pulled.  And Sirius Black had seemed so reluctant for the secret to be told.  It could have been good acting, but still...

Either way, he had to know for certain.  It was just as likely that they'd told him so they could lord it over him later when he didn't look, and they found whatever secret was hidden there.  If it was gold, he needed it far more than they did.  His mother deserved better than--

He cut that thought off with a shake of his head.  He was almost there, and he couldn't be thinking of her when he had to concentrate on what he was doing.

It was harder to make out the knot he was supposed to press in the dark, especially with branches swinging past him at deadly speeds.  He was just out of reach, of course, and standing quite still, only his lips moving as he tried to remember the instructions.  He whispered the words as if that would help him remember more clearly what it was he was looking for.

Something skittered just outside his field of vision, heading toward the tree.  It was a mouse or a rat or a rabbit or some other vermin escaped on the grounds.  Probably someone's escaped pet.  It wouldn't have concerned him at all, but it seemed to be heading directly to the spot he was looking for.

The rodent nimbly dodged the branches as they flailed about.  "What the--?"  Severus stepped forward, exclaiming in his surprised as the rat (he could clearly see it was a rat now, at this distance) ran with purpose up to the trunk of the tree, then turned and looked at him directly, as if it were expecting him.

It was such a shock to him, for some reason, that he nearly got thrashed by a branch, and fell unceremoniously on his ass trying to dodge it.  He heard familiar laughter a few meters away to his right, also just outside the ring of devastation that surrounded the Whomping Willow.

Black and Potter.  Of course.  He glared in their direction, moving backward before picking himself up and dusting himself off.  "I knew this was some trick," he muttered, spotting them now as they leaned against each other.

"You don't want to be doing that," Potter said, still laughing, still leaning against his best friend.  "Go back to bed.  It was all a joke.  Really, it's painful how gullible you are on top of being a slimy greaseball with a schnaz the size of the Atlantic."

"Pathetic," Black agreed, snickering and shaking his head.  "You'd do anything for a hint of money, wouldn't you?  Would you blow me, Sevvie, for a knut?"

"I still think there's something down there that you don't want me to see," Severus sneered.  "And I'll find it."  He was too tired to think of a wittier comeback, especially after so nearly being brained.

He glanced at the tree again, looking at the rat...

The rat that was very suddenly standing on two legs and growing rather quickly into one of Potter and Black's cohorts.

"Look out!" he was shouting, waving his arms around.  "Snape, behind you!"

Snape was turning around, involuntarily, though he suspected some other trick.  A shadowy figure was walking toward them, drawing out a wand, and a shiver went down his spine.  It couldn't be Filch.  The idiot caretaker would probably have drawn the wrong end of the wand, anyway.  It had to be a teacher, then, and they were all in trouble.

"Run!" Peter Pettigrew screamed.

At the same time, the mysterious figure was whispering a spell.

A spell that Severus recognized too well.

This was not a teacher.

"Everybody ru--"

Peter's warning cries were cut off by a sickening crunch and thud.  Severus tried to look in two directions at once, torn between two dangers.

The unknown won.

Severus turned to face the dark figure, dodging as if in slow motion and pulling out his wand to interrupt whatever spell was next.  The first spell that sprang to his mind, _Sectumsempra_ , was already on his lips when his wand flew from his hand and bounced off of a swinging branch.

He was as good as dead.

Severus straightened defiantly, ready to accept the worst.  If this was his fate, so be it.  He would not leave sniveling and begging for his life.

He heard the commotion and outcry behind him, but that was in another world.  That was Potter and his cronies.  They'd surely leave him to die.  It filled him with a smug superiority to think that.  In the end, they were--

They were shouting out spells and running to his side.  The mysterious figure deflected the spells, growling low in frustration, then looked past Severus and nodded curtly.  "Good enough," he said in a rough voice and then disappeared.

"Snape!"  First Potter, and then Black, came up behind him and placed hands on his shoulders.  "Are you okay?"

"Get your hands off me, you--" he began coldly, turning around and shrugging off their hands at the same time.  The rest of his words simply died in his mouth, which hung as wide open as his eyes now were as he took in the scene now before him.

Neither Potter nor Black turned to look right away, having watched it as it happened.  They probably didn't want to look ever again, and Severus wouldn't blame them.

It was probably a chance in a million.  Everyone knew that the Whomping Willow thrashed about with bone-crushing force, but even still no one had ever thought--

Severus had thought only that Pettigrew had been knocked in the chest and winded or maybe knocked out since there had been no immediate cry of pain.  He'd been too distracted afterward to note that his voice had been absent from the clamor behind him.

What he found, instead, was that the side of Pettigrew's head had been smashed in, and something else had torn into him like a great beast.  He knew immediately what spell had caused it, had in fact been about to use the very same spell against the attacker.  Blood was everywhere, like a garish red work of modern "art" that had so captured the simple minds of the Muggles recently.

It was that analogy alone that kept Severus together at the sight.  If he thought too much about it, he wasn't sure what he would do.

"We've got to go in there and get him," he said, voice dry and raspy with emotion.  "Find a stick or rock and hit that knot you--"

"No," Potter said flatly.

"I'll go get Dumbledore," Black murmured with a hand on Potter's shoulder, squeezing comfortingly for a moment.

"There's no TIME for that!  He'll die if we don't--"

"It's too late," Potter interrupted again.

Severus saw Pettigrew twitch and looked at Potter as if he were mad.  "No, look at him, he's still alive in there!  Damn it, where's my wand?  If you won't get him, I will!"

Potter grabbed him by the shoulders and shook.  "You can't!  Look!"  He pointed to the base of the tree, to the tunnel Severus had noticed before.

If he hadn't known what spell was cast, and what its effects were, he might have blamed the creature he saw, trapped beneath the tree.  Not quite wolf, not quite human...

"A werewolf!" he cried, jumping back.  "Kill it, Potter!  Before it escapes and kills us!"

"He won't," Potter said sadly.

"What do you mean, he won't?  He's a bloody goddamn werewolf!"

Potter just slipped to his knees, staring at the creature with grief and sorrow in his eyes.  "I'm sorry...Moony..."

As if it were sentient enough to reply, the werewolf began a keening howl, sounding more sorrowful than anything Severus had ever heard.

Wait.  'As if...?'

"Potter," Severus said, with a horrific realization dawning in his mind.  "Is he--is that **thing** one of us?  A student?  Is it...is it...?"

James potter nodded weakly, looking defeated.  It was a look Severus thought he'd never see on that smug face, and definitely not a look he thought he'd be sympathetic toward in all his wild imaginings.  "Remus..."

Lupin?  Remus Lupin was a werewolf?

Somehow, Severus thought as he heard the panicked approach of the teachers, somehow he wasn't really surprised.


	2. Chapter 2

Death.  A state of being where there is no life left in whatever object it is that is dead.

Muggles have begun fighting over minutia, trying to decide exactly when a person is alive or dead.  How long before a person is born are they alive?  If their heart is kept pumping by their medical contraptions, but there is no brain activity, are they dead?  Is there the potential that they will return from such a state?

It's even more confusing in the wizarding world, sometimes.  Sometimes, though, it's more clear-cut.

It's pretty obvious that if you run into your best friend's ghost, they're dead.  No matter how animated their body seems, it's over.

 

## Chapter Two

## Minutia

 

"I **know** it's impossible to apparate from Hogwarts grounds," Severus growled, glaring at Potter.

They were seated in Professor McGonagall's office, telling the story for what seemed like the fiftieth time, though it was probably only the third.  Severus had, of course, not edited his account in the least, nor glossed over the things that it seemed Potter and Black were so eager to ignore as irrelevant to what had come of their prank.  Professor McGonagall was seated at her desk, quite demanding with her constant questions, while Professor Dumbledore sat off to the side and quietly took it all in.  It seemed that Professor Slughorn had been quite unwilling to be raised from the comfort of his bed at such a late hour, so Severus was surrounded by others with Gryffindor loyalties and ideals, feeling quite set upon by this inquest.

"It wasn't invisibility," Black added.  "The guy just disappeared."

"That is either impossible, or a direct contradiction," said Professor McGonagall, shaking her head in exasperation.  "I want you boys to tell me the truth.  I don't know how you got Snape here to be in on this utter fabrication, but--"

"I'm not," Severus said, hands balled into fists at his side.  "I am not their toady or crony or whatever, and I am certainly not in cahoots with them or on their side in the least, and you couldn't pay me enough to lie for them for any reason.  You should be able to tell that much by what I told you of what led up to all this."

"Err, well, yes, that's--"

"The man vanished into thin air.  He didn't apparate.  He didn't use some sort of invisibility.  It was as if he completely ceased to exist somewhere between one moment and the next."

"Yes!  That's it, exactly!" Potter agreed.

Snape glared, mostly from habit.  He didn't like having them agree with him so readily and absolutely.  It went against the natural order of things.

"Look!  One of our best friends DIED, and you're nattering on about disappearing people and--"

"Calm yourself, Mr. Black.  If you're making up some story to cover up a murder--"

"PETER DIED!  WE WATCHED IT HAPPEN WITH OUR OWN EYES, IN FRONT OF US, AND COULDN'T SAVE HIM AND YOU THINK _WE_ DID IT?"

"Minerva," Dumbledore's soft voice cut through the anger in the room, bringing with it a sudden quiet calm.  "I do not think they are lying.  If the man responsible for Peter's death, however indirect, did not apparate and did not turn invisible, we must find out how it actually happened and not jump to conclusions."

"Surely you don't think they could be telling the truth about--"

"Ah, but I do," Professor Dumbledore answered quietly, with deep sadness in his voice.  "I believe every word I have heard tonight, unfortunately, and I don't think we will get anything more useful from them tonight.  It is well past three in the morning...."

"So it is," McGonagall said, glancing at the clock and looking quite defeated.  "Return to your rooms, and get as much rest as you can."

"Also," Dumbledore added, as they all stood and began to walk to the door, "the three of you are excused from classes for the rest of the week.  I'll inform Remus in the morning that he is, as well."

"Yes, Professor," they chorused, and walked out of the room.

They all three walked down the corridor a way, and then Potter slumped against a wall and just stopped.  Severus and Black hesitated, shoes making scuffling sounds on the bare stone, and then they stopped as well.  Silence surrounded them until their breathing and the rustle of their school robes seemed to echo throughout the castle.

I don't have time for this, Severus thought to himself, impatiently.  It wasn't as if these two were his friends, or he should feel any sort of sympathy for them.

"James," Black said, softly, reinforcing the idea that Severus should just walk away.  "Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" Potter asked, taking off his glasses and staring wearily upward into the gloom.  He swiped quickly at his eyes with the back of his arm and then replaced his glasses.  "I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again.  I'll never get the image of that out of my mind."

It was something Severus could agree with, completely.  Recently he'd begun to think he was strong, and cold, and completely ruthless, and he could handle anything life threw at him.  He could do anything to rise above what he was now, no matter what he had to do.  This, though, had proven him wrong.  He felt a strange hollow weakness somewhere in his chest, and it was enough to keep him still and quiet while he listened in on words he was sure he should not be included in on.

"I know what you mean," Black said.  "I mean, I still can't believe it.  Peter...like that..."

"What?  You didn't think he'd die fighting off Voldemort or something, did you?" Potter said with a wry grin.

Severus flinched at such a casual use of the Dark Lord's name.  From Dumbledore, he could almost accept it.  From someone like Potter, however, it was just arrogance.  Whistling in the dark.

Black scoffed.  "No.  Before tonight, I think Peter would have wet himself at the thought, or maybe he'd have died of fright if they were in the same room.  He certainly plucked up the courage tonight, though, didn't he?  Amazing, how he ran forward like that, not caring about his own safety."

"True heart of a Gryffindor," Potter said solemnly, nodding.

"What, you don't think anyone from any other house would have the human decency to do the same?" Snape demanded, stepping forward.

"Maybe a Hufflepuff would, for a true friend.  Maybe a Ravenclaw would, if they saw an inch above whatever book they're reading."  Black glared defiantly and stopped there, short of the house Severus so proudly belonged to.

"Come off it," Potter said, surprisingly enough.  "Slytherins aren't all monsters and villains."

Black looked at his best friend with exaggerated shock.  "You _do_ remember meeting my mother, right?"

Potter hit him in the shoulder.  "Snape was right.  It's _human_ decency.  It's got nothing to do with houses."

What in the world was making Potter say all that?  Severus was completely floored and more than a little disturbed and the good will and warm fuzzy gushing from the arrogant, self-absorbed, lazy, snobbish Quidditch star.

Black just nodded slowly.  "I suppose so," he said reluctantly.

"I need a drink," Potter said, replacing his glasses and straightening suddenly.  "Let's go get some butterbeer."

"You're supposed to be going to your dormitories," Severus said, finally finding his voice.  "Besides that, where are you going to find butterbeer, here, at this hour?"

Potter and Black exchanged looks and then walked up to Severus and grabbed him by the arms.

"You're coming with us," Potter announced, as they started pulling him along.

"What?  But, but, but--" Severus sputtered, thinking they'd obviously just lost their minds.

Black nodded.  "Peter died saving your scrawny, slimy, ugly arse.  The least you can to do repay it is come with us for a drink and keep your mouth shut about it."

"I don't owe you two anything," Severus said, dragging his feet and struggling half-heartedly.  A butterbeer did sound good right now, just not with them.

"How's that for an ingrate," Potter said, still hanging onto Severus like a barnacle.  "A fellow dies for him, and he can't even be bothered to go out for a drink with his mates."

"And here he was, just telling us all about his human decency."  Black shook his head, tugging on Severus without letting up in the least.

"Fine," Severus hissed, pulling his arms free at last.  He couldn't begin to say how much he resented being tugged about like some piece of luggage.  It was beyond undignified.  "I'll go if you both _shut up._   We'll get caught, carrying on like this."

The other two glanced at each other and nodded, then led the way confidently.  "I'm not too worried about getting caught, myself," Black said with a shrug.  "Not this time."

"No kidding," Potter added.  "After all.  What are they going to do?  Kill us?"

"Somehow, being expelled doesn't have the same horror it did before."

"Speak for yourselves," Severus said grumpily.  "If we get expelled, we'll never figure out who did this.  Personally, I want the hide of whoever it was, and I want it nailed to my living room wall."

The others stared at him in silence for a minute as they walked.

"I hadn't thought of that," Potter said, surprised.

"Obviously," Severus sneered.

"I like your style," Black added.  "Fine then.  You can have his skin, if it's worth having after I'm through with the bloody bastard."

"Now, now," Potter chided, "revenge sounds attractive at the moment, I'm sure, but we should wait a bit."

"Wait for what?" Black demanded, looking at his friend as if he'd lost his mind.

"Until we get to the kitchens, and can make a proper toast to our upcoming vengeance."

It was an idea that Severus found he could actually get behind.


	3. Chapter 3

Once upon a time, there was a strange medieval Muggle contraption kept in the kitchens.  One year a new headmaster took it apart and began reassembling it in the great hall, just because he could.

"What is that?" a student asked.

"It is a trebuchet, Mr. Weasley," the eccentric headmaster answered with a smile.

"A ter-byeu-what?"

"Trebuchet," he said, enunciating slowly and carefully.  "An ancient Muggle device used to fling things about; usually used specifically to attack fortifications."

"I thought that was a cattlepult."

"A catapult is something similar, yet different in design.  I believe I've got some books..."

"Err, well, yes," young Weasley interrupted quickly, before the headmaster could force said books upon him as a 'side project' in Muggle Studies.  "But what is it doing here?"

"The house elves were using it, in the kitchens, until just a few years ago when I convinced them that spells were much cleaner and more efficient."

"What were they using it for?" the student asked, bewildered.

"Flinging rubbish."

"Rubbish?"

"Yes.  In the middle of the night, they'd fling the rubbish out a window.  Not very efficient, but it did keep them amused.  Especially when a student was out of bounds in the late evening."  The headmaster sounded rueful at this one, as if he knew firsthand what he was talking about.

This conversation was kept alive in the oral tradition of the Weasley family for generations, until a young boy named Arthur heard it, and grew fascinated with it and all things having to do with Muggles.

 

 

## Chapter Three

## Strange Bedfellows or A Dish Best Served Cold

 

James and Sirius snuck back into Gryffindor tower some time just before dawn.  Everyone else was fast asleep, and they knew that Remus would be escorted in soon.  They were well used to losing sleep on nights like tonight, and sneaking in right around the same time as this so they wouldn't get caught.

They were usually sneaking another of their number into their own room, not someone else into the Slytherin dormitories.

"James," Sirius said quietly, as they slipped into their beds.

"Yeah?"

There was a long pause, and then Sirius sighed and shook his head.  "Nothing.  Never mind."

James nodded, setting his glasses aside and pulling the covers up over his shoulders.  He thought he understood, even without words.  It was still too raw and new to talk about what had happened, without getting completely overboard with grief.  Still, he stared numbly at Peter's bed, and a lump formed in his throat.

"That's three," he whispered to himself.  Two students in their dorm room, gone.  Last year, over summer break, there'd been an attack on the Prewett family by Death Eaters.  Gideon Prewett had invited them all over to visit with his family, but only Ernie Pince, their other roommate, had gone.  When James and the others had arrived at the start of the year, the two beds had been removed, leaving only his own, Sirius's, Remus's, and Peter's.

How long would it be, before Peter's bed disappeared with the others?  Would they owl Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew first and let them come and collect his things?  Or would they gather it all up first thing and try to pretend as if Peter hadn't been there in the first place.

This was different, though.  This wasn't Death Eaters.  Peter hadn't died at Voldemort's hands, or the hands of one of his sycophants.  This shouldn't be a question of morale or pressing forward.  It was...

What was it?

Who had that mysterious figure been?  What was the dark spell that had all but finished Peter, ensuring that he'd die quickly of blood loss rather than just living on with his brains scrambled?  If you thought about it, really, it was probably a mercy.

A very painful, gruesome, and cruel mercy.

Could mercy be cruel?

James rolled over, covering his head with is pillow to shut out the rest of the world.  Maybe that would help him think of other things.  Anything.  Burning hate and rage.  That would be much better than the helpless feeling that always came with the news of an attack, or the loss of yet someone else he knew.

It had to be a Death Eater.  Who else would use dark magic to kill and terrorize mere students, even if the four of them were in their seventh years at Hogwarts?

The air shifted a little, so he knew that Remus must be back.  From beneath his pillow he heard talking, but he was in no mood to listen in.  He kept the pillow over his head for a bit longer, until there was silence in the room, and then he sat up and looked over at Remus.

"You look like hell," he said, voice rough with the need to sleep.

"So do you," Remus said softly.  "More than usual."

They both looked over at Sirius, who was snoring loudly and sprawled across the bed in genuine sleep.

Remus and James then looked at each other for a minute, and slowly their eyes were drawn to the empty bed in the room.

"I couldn't believe it, when they told me," Remus whispered.  "Even seeing all the blood beneath the tree..."

James nodded.  "I saw it happen, and I still can't believe it."

There was a long few moments of silence; maybe a minute's worth, maybe ten.  Remus finally looked at James and leaned against one of the bedposts.  "And he really saved...Snape...?"

"Yeah," James said, shaking his head and a little relieved that he wouldn't have to tell every detail of the whole story again so soon.  He really didn't want to talk about it at all.  "We took him off to raid the kitchen stores and liberate a few butterbeers, too.  Pity the house elves wouldn't give us anything stronger, being students and all."

"You.  And Sirius.  With Snape?"

The idea seemed to have broken Remus's mind, when added to everything else.

"Yeah.  We're going to kill the bastard who killed Peter.  Kill him a lot.  Well, Snape's doing it since he was the one who was going to be attacked, or maybe because he was too insignificant to kill in the end after all, but either way.  Yeah.  Snape's in it for his own ends, and I don't care.  He might be a slimy Slytherin traitor, but better to have him on our side than the other."

"James?  Are you sure that's you in that skull?"  Remus was continuing to look at him as if he were babbling in some other language.  "If I weren't so exhausted, I'd go feel your forehead to see if you're delirious.  In fact, for my own sanity, I'll just assume you are."

"Come off it," James said, flopping backward and staring up at the canopy on his bed.  "You've seen him.  He's a natural at potions, and he hates me so much he's become fairly decent at other things just to try to show me up.  I thought it was pathetic, really, but he'd actually make a good ally, if we keep an eye on our own backs."

"I'm not saying you're wrong," Remus said slowly.  "I'm just surprised at the change of heart, after all I've been trying to say all this time."

James nodded, knowing that was true.  He put his answer together carefully, and spoke slower than usual when he did.  "Peter died, saving his life.  I can't let that be in vain.  Hell, if Peter had died saving Voldemort, I'd spend my last breath trying to turn him into someone worth the sacrifice.  I should be thankful it's just Snape."

"Wow.  I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Yeah," James said softly, still staring straight upward, afraid to blink in case the motion prompted the tears to fall from his eyes instead of just sit there.  "I'll turn him into a decent human being, if it kills me.  And I hope we'll kill whoever did this, along the way."

"Hopefully, the other guy will die first," Remus said, and then yawned loudly.  "You should get some sleep.  It'll be good for you."

"I can't.  I've got revenge to plot."

He was already the only one left awake in the room, however, when he said it.


	4. Chapter 4

Before the 1960s, Muggle science really only duplicated things that had already been done by magic before, but in strange and unusual new ways.  Magic grew in leaps and bounds, where for a long time scientific improvement crawled at a snail's pace.  Even when the modern achievements hurtled Muggle science faster and further than imaginable before, it repeated things that had been done and perfected by wizards long before.

Around the time Albus Dumbledore began his long and illustrious career at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Muggles had turned their sights to something beyond magic's reach.

Space.

Oh, plenty of wizards and witches had been launched into orbit by some way or another.  It was even possible to survive, if one was quite careful in their use of a great many spells.  It wasn't worth it, though, for more than map making, and even that was easier when new spells automated the process so it no longer required the mapmaker to visually survey what he wished to map.

When news reached the wizard world that the United States Muggle president said, in 1961, that they were going to land on the moon by the end of the decade, Muggles and wizards alike were joined in the belief that this was impossible.  They were also joined in the hope that it was not.

Wizards bent their wills to the project just as vigorously as the Muggle scientists that were their counterparts.

In the end, though, only one group succeeded.

Science had outstripped magic at last.

Certain wizards saw this, and could no longer look upon Muggles as their unfortunate cousins, handicapped by a mental lack.

Others felt threatened by Muggle power, and worked harder than ever to weaken and degrade Muggles, to take that power back.  They did not think of it this way consciously, but such wizards were clearly becoming more desperate to prove their superiority.

The rift in the wizard world between these two attitudes was at its widest, ever, and it did not take a genius to take advantage of it.

Just a megalomaniac, born to a witch and a Muggle, abandoned at birth, who felt he had something to prove.

 

# Chapter Four

# A Fire That Freezes

 

James got up and went to his classes anyway, leaving his friends behind to get all the rest they could.  His professors looked at him funny, in every class, but no one said a word.  They gave him sympathetic looks for a few moments, but he seemed to look through them until the class actually began, and then he applied himself with a fervor they were quite unused to seeing from him.  He was usually so laid back that they all assumed he was simply a natural at everything they could throw at him.

Well, with a little prompting and a bit of help from Remus, he usually was.

He needed something to distract himself with, though.  Desperately.

Unfortunately, there simply weren't enough classes in the day.  He found himself alone at lunch, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to remedy that or not.  There had been no announcements, but it seemed like everyone knew and they all watched him with concerned, sad, or even frightened eyes.

Whatever the rumors were, he didn't feel up to correcting them.  He was sure he looked at least as bad as he felt, and he wasn't the only one.

Snape had also been to every class, and was furiously filling some parchment with something that looked to the untrained eye like chicken scratch.

James tapped him on the head with one of his books, lightly.  "Couldn't sleep?"

Snape just nodded curtly, not bothering to look up.

"Can I talk to you?"

"You already are, unless you've reinvented the word."

The whispers rushed through the Great Hall like a spreading wildfire, slower only than the covert glances and the outright stares.  James heard the word "fight" whispered and murmured a few times, and had to restrain himself from yelling to the whole room to stop being a bunch of nimrods and jumping to conclusions.  It irritated him that that's all they thought of him, when Snape was involved.  Never mind the fact that until last night they'd have been right to think it.  Today it still got on his nerves.

"I meant outside, where we're not the center of attention."

Snape looked at him coldly.  "Is that even possible with you?"

James waited a minute, but Snape wasn't budging.  He finally sighed, picked up Snape's books and a bit of food, and started walking out of the room despite Snape's protests.  The volume of the murmurs in the Great Hall rose dramatically as he did so, but he didn't care.

"What do you think you're doing?" Snape demanded, flailing wildly as he followed James out onto the grounds.  "I was in the middle of something!"

"When's the last time you got out in the sun?  You're not a vampire, you know.  A tan won't kill you."

"Your concern for the color of my skin deeply moves me, I'm sure," Snape said, rolling his eyes.  "It's hardly a reason to abscond with my personal affects and humiliate me in front of the entire school.  Again."

"Oh, please," James said.  "That wasn't humiliation, and you know it."

Snape just glared, sitting down right where they were.

"Hey, we're sitting down under that tree!"  James pointed to the spot he usually haunted with his friends.

"I'm sitting here.  I like it right here, and I'm not one of your groupies to be ordered about, besides.  Take it or leave it."

James sighed and sat down.  Making a friend out of this antisocial outcast was going to be a lot more work than he thought.  "Here it is, then."

Snape looked surprised for a moment, but he covered it up quickly with a scowl.  "Where are your shadows?"

"Aside from the dead one, you mean?" James replied with a sour expression.  The lack of sleep was starting to add a slightly surreal feel to the whole situation.

"You win the 'stating the obvious' award for the day.  How's it feel?"

"I'll set it on my trophy shelf with the rest."

Someone on the other side of the world would probably have seen Snape's irritation at that comment as easily as their own hand in front of their eyes, it was so obvious and intense.  "Give me my things, Potter."

"Promise me you'll stay out here with me, first.  I guess we don't have to talk if you don't want, but don't leave."

The expression turned into confusion on top of the irritation.  "What are you playing at, this time?"

"I just don't want to be alone," James said, lying back on the grass.  "I didn't think you'd want to be, either, after last night.  Otherwise you'd have stayed in your room."

Snape looked at him, expression almost blank except for a disarming curiosity.  That was all, though, and then he grabbed his things and pulled out the paper he'd been writing on.  "I suppose so," he muttered quietly as he started writing again.

"What are you doing?" James said, crawling over to look.  "Good lord, is that your actual handwriting?  How do you manage to read it?"

"Shut up, Potter," Snape said as he bent closer.  "I can read it just fine."

"But, what is it?"

"I'm writing down everything that happened last night, so I can keep it straight.  That way I won't lose any details over time, and I won't have to constantly think about it later.  Also, I can blackmail you and your friends with it, later."

"Spoken like a true Slytherin," James said with a slight chuckle.

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

Snape looked up at him with a pointed gaze.  "Perhaps not to you, but that's why you're just a Gryffindor, isn't it?"

"Just?"

"Meaning 'merely', 'only', or 'simply'.  They'll let any imbecile into Hogwarts these days, won't they?"

"Of course.  They let you in, after all."

Snape shot him a dirty look, but he returned to the narrative before him.

"You know," James mused, "you won't be able to use that as blackmail if no one in the world can read it but you."

"Shut up, Potter."

"Just an observation," he said with a grin.  When Snape didn't answer him, James just grinned wider and looked up at the clear sky, breathing in the scent of the grass and flowers.  It was such a beautiful day.  Hardly the sort of day you'd expect to follow a night like last night.

The grin turned into a grimace and he rolled over onto his stomach.  What he wanted to do was play Quidditch.  He wanted to be up on his broom, facing impossible odds and beating them all to the cheer of a crowd.  There was no practice until Monday, though, and this was only Wednesday.  By Monday it would probably be wet and rainy, as autumn reasserted itself and took back what had been, for the last week or so, blessedly summer-like weather.

"Do you think they'll have a big funeral, this weekend?  Have the whole school turn out?"

"For a friend of yours?  Probably."  Snape said bitterly, nose an inch from the parchment.  "If I'd died last night, probably not."

"You know what your problem is, Snape?"

"No, but I’m sure you'll tell me."

"Of course I will," James said loftily.  "That's what friends are for."

"I'm not your friend.  I don't make friends with stupid wankers."

"After last night, you're stuck with me.  With all of us.  Now--"

"I'm NOT going to take Pettigrew's place in your idiotic little gang!"

"No," James agreed, barely holding back a glare.  "You're not being invited to.  No one could ever take Peter's place, and I cannot tell you how presumptuous and arrogant it is, even to my ears, that you'd say such a thing."  He looked coldly at Snape for a minute, making sure that the Slytherin wouldn't try to interrupt him again.  It worked, getting the message across clearly that this was not something Snape wanted to challenge him on.  "We are, however, allies now.  I'd prefer to be friendly allies, personally, and I'm sure you'd see the benefit of it yourself if you'd stop and think about it for a minute.  There's too much at stake to worry about any of us watching our backs and everyone else's wands.  Be paranoid after this is through, Severus.  I--" He stopped himself, shaking his head.  "Never mind.  I'm offering, hesitantly, friendship on top of our truce.  Think about it.  I'm going to go wake up my friends."

He stood up and stormed off, leaving Snape to whatever dark thoughts he might have after that.  James was too upset, his emotions too close to the surface, to do much more than that.


	5. Chapter 5

Back to time travel.  I know, I know, that old thing?  We covered that before the first chapter!  How dare you, the author, come back to lecture us about that again?

Sorry?

Time travel is such a heavily guarded secret, and so closely regulated, that many wizards and witches don't even think of it as an alternative.  Why would they?  So many things could go wrong with it, after all.  Killing yourself, becoming your own ancestor, and all that hassle.  They were cliché long before Muggle speculative fiction authors got a hold of the concept centuries later.

It is still used, however.  In the Ministry of Magic, there are at least one hundred and twenty seven time twisters sitting on the shelf at any time.  Those are the ones that are approved for ministry use, too, not the confiscated ones they have set aside for later disposal.  No one knows for sure how many of those there are.

There are also other means of time travel less well known, even to the most studious and well-informed witches and wizards.

You don't need to know that, however.  If you did, you'd have some intimate knowledge of the _obliviate_ spell to share with others.

Oh, wait, no you wouldn't.

 

 

## Chapter Five

## Nothing To Speak Of

 

Hermione Granger chewed on the tip of a lock of hair, staring at the book before her with rapt fascination.  It was an action she only got away with at Hogwarts, since her parents were constantly on her case about sticking only things that are food in her mouth, and even that was carefully regulated to prevent candies and sweets from rotting their precious daughter's teeth.

She tugged at the corner of the page, not quite ready to turn it, but eager to get to the next gem of information.

Damp hair hit her cheek and she realized what she'd been doing.  "Ew."  She brushed the hair aside, wrinkling her nose.

That was all, though.  She was so engrossed in her book that she didn't notice anything else.  She certainly didn't notice when a younger girl walked in and plopped down on her bed, staring at her.

"Hermione."

No reaction.  Not even a glance.

"Hello!  Are you in there?"  The redhead waved her hands around.

"Nnn."

It was something, but not enough.

"Hermione!"  Ginny grabbed the book and tugged it out of her hands.

"Ginny!"  Hermione stared in shock.

"Great!  We know our names now!" Ginny replied with false cheer.

Hermione rolled her eyes and snatched back her book.  "What is it?  This was really interesting..."

"So, you did lose track of the time, then."

"What?"  Hermione looked out the window, wondering when late afternoon had suddenly become so dark.

"We were supposed to meet after supper?  You were going to help me with my Muggle Studies homework?"

"I missed supper?"  Hermione looked shocked, clutching the book to her chest.

"Apparently," said Ginny.  "I'd have brought you something, if I'd realized."

"No, it's okay," Hermione said slowly.  "I'm not even hungry."

"What is it that you're reading, anyway?  It's not like you to just blow someone off like this.  I mean, I don't mind, but you had me worried."

"Oh, this?" Hermione squeaked, hugging the book even closer.  "It's nothing.  I mean, nothing that anyone else would be interested in, I'm sure."

"You know you've never been good at lying," Ginny said, flopping on Hermione's bed.  "Besides the fact that you've never in your life said that before about a book you were reading, that is.  What is it that you're trying to keep secret from me?  Is it full of dirty stories, or something?"  She grinned suddenly, eyes sparkling with mischief.  "Come on!  Share, if it is!  Please?"

Hermione looked positively scandalized.  "Dirty--what?  You think that I would...would...would...?"

"Not in a million years," Ginny sighed.  "You're too goody-goody for that."

This was met by a faint blush.  "I'm not all that goody-goody, but you're probably right.  I'd be terrified of being caught."

"Just for another year, though, right?"

Hermione nodded slowly.  "I suppose so.  It's funny to think, I still don't know yet what I want to do after this.  I mean, there's so much open to me, and it's all rushing at me so fast."

"I know what you mean.  In another year I'll be in the same position.  You know what I think you should do, though?  I think you should continue on, to become a professor.  It would be perfect for you, even if it meant you'd never get to read dirty stories."

They both giggled at that, and Hermione shook her head.  "I'd hope not, at least.  Really, can you imagine Professor McGonagall, or Professor Flitwick, hiding a book of dirty stories in their offices?"

This set them off laughing in earnest, and then Ginny squeaked and bent closer, whispering conspiratorially.  "Or even, Professor Riddle?"

Hermione's eyes and mouth went perfectly round.  "Never in a million years!" she exclaimed, and then doubled over with laughter.

"I know!" Ginny gasped.  "He'd probably rather die!"

The laughter went on for quite some time, as they named various teachers, but none of them were quite as hilarious as the thought of Professor Riddle leaning furtively over a book, scanning the pages for whatever kinky sexual thing might actually turn him on.  It was scary and disgusting and the funniest thing they'd ever thought of.

The chuckles finally died down and they sprawled there, just breathing and rubbing their sides and their cheeks, afraid to say anything else for fear of setting each other off again.  It took a while before they were under control again, and a while after that before Ginny finally sighed and rolled onto her side.  "I needed that, and I'm sure you did, also."

"Yes," Hermione agreed readily.  "This last year has been sheer hell, and I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard.  Thanks, Ginny."

"Any time.  Hopefully someone will do something for me like this next year."

"I'm sure they will."

Ginny shrugged a little, figuring Hermione was probably right, but not counting on it.  "Now, tell me what you've been reading?  I'll die of curiosity if you don't tell me."

"It's just research for a paper," she replied, pulling the book to her again.  She glanced around the room to make sure they were alone, then showed Ginny the cover.

Ginny's eyes grew wide.  "Time travel," she whispered in awe.  "That's years beyond even you, Hermione!"

"Professor Riddle doesn't think so," she said defensively.

Ginny bit her lower lip and just nodded.  Her parents had had a few things to say about Riddle and his appointment as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but it really wasn't something she could just come out and say.  "I'm sure he'd know then, wouldn't he?"

"He _is_ a professor, after all," Hermione said softly.  "And, he does seem to know quite a bit about the Dark Arts.  I mean, we've almost all gotten an O on our O.W.L.s, haven't we?  Even Ron."

"He just scares me," she whispered.

"Me too," Hermione admitted quietly.  "But we're almost out of here, right?"

"Right."


	6. Chapter 6

In at least one version of reality, a great man once said, "There is no good and evil.  There is only power and those too weak to seek it."

It's a debatable concept, of course.  Everyone has a different idea of what the words "good" or "evil" actually mean.  They're very slippery ideas, even if to an eleven-year-old facing the man who murdered his parents these concepts may seem absolute.  The boundaries do seem to waver in most minds with age and experience, though.

Power, on the other hand, is a rather immediate idea.  It is getting your way.  It is doing what you want, when you want it.  Any child understands power.    If you cry and your mother makes it all better, you have power and are content.  If no one comes, and you are left to cry while growing more and more upset, you are powerless and miserable.

It is easy to see how this great man, powerless throughout his childhood, would come to such a conclusion.  If you were to add to powerless that he was unloved...

Ah, but love is another sort of power, and we can explore that one later.

 

 

## Chapter Six

## Those Too Weak To Seek It

 

The head of Slytherin house said it at least once a week, without any qualms or resentments.  "Excellent work, Miss Granger.  Another ten points for Gryffindor."  He'd started out at fifty in her first year, but he pointed out that if he kept that up all seven years, she'd be solely responsible for their winning the House Cup every year, and it was supposed to be an award for every interested party, not just her.

Hermione, for her part, felt her cheeks warm every time he said anything to her, and wondered if it were too late to change houses.  He was much older, yes, of course, but he was the sort of man who grew more handsome and distinguished with age.  Besides that, it was his mind she respected and wanted to be closer to.  At least, that's what she told herself every day when she left Professor Riddle's room.

She kept her opinions to herself, however, since no one else seemed to share them.  She'd long ago stopped defending him to others, who thought that though he was quite charming, there was something spooky or scary about him.  Perhaps it was because her parents were Muggles, and she hadn't heard from them what sorts of things were whispered about him behind his back.  Mostly though, she just didn't see what they did.  They said there was something cold about his eyes and dead behind his smile.  Even his kindness was calculated.  What she heard most, and trained her mind to tune out the hardest, was that there was something altogether inhuman about him.

Hermione had tried so hard, in fact, to tune that out that for years she hadn't even see it anymore.  Yes, of course, there'd been something different about him when she'd been younger.  She had been so new to magic at all, though, that she'd written it off.  Everyone was unusual in their own way, weren't they?

Weren't they?

When she'd started her project on time travel, she'd been open to herself that she had a typical teenage crush on her teacher.  It was silly, and nothing would ever come of it, but it was there and she could no longer deny it.  She was particularly firm with herself when he agreed to work very close with her, after hours, to make sure that she performed her experiments in the strictest of safety.

Of course she was giddy!  Any girl with a crush would be.  It was her chance to shine, and to get to know him better, and to have his full and undivided attention.  She was logical enough to know her desires were futile and emotional enough to still thrill at the idea that maybe, just maybe, they weren't as futile as she thought.

He was just as untouchable as ever, of course, but he was also just as elaborate with his praise.  It brought her longing to a peak, where she would do anything to get closer to him.

Anything.

She'd come up with an excuse to see him, much later than usual.  She brought her research notes with her, a question she didn't truly need the answer for repeated over and over until she was confident it would come out right.  She prayed he would not be able to tell, as he always seemed to, that the question was contrived just for a chance to speak with him again.

The door to his office was open just the slightest bit, and her heart was pounding loud enough to drown out everything but the monstrously loud sound of her own feet (or so it seemed to her, in her attempt to be stealthy.)

A few deep breaths later, she began to raise her hand to knock anyway, but that amount of time was enough to stall her further, for she heard something unusual coming from within the room.  There was a whispering sort of hiss, in some language she barely recognized as a language.  Instead of knuckles, her fingertips met the door and brushed it just a bit further open instead of the soft knock she'd intended.

She didn't make a sound.

She barely dared to breathe.

There'd been rumors that the large tank in his office held a snake.  Then again, there were rumors that he had a thousand other things stored in his office, as well.  She'd never seen anything out of the ordinary, herself, before now.  Students usually did not spend much time in that room, either, even when they had business in there, so it was a source of much speculation.  Hermione had always rolled her eyes at the rumors and studiously made a point of not looking for anything strange when she was invited in, so that she could feel smugly superior to those who had nothing better with their time than to say such horrible things about her favorite instructor.

She could not refuse to see it, this time.  The top of the tank was opened, and half of a very large snake was sticking out of it.  The other half was wrapped around Professor Riddle.  Some instinctual part of her mind screamed that he was in danger and would surely be eaten, but she already knew better.  It was more like the loving embrace of an old friend or family member than the death squeeze of a vicious predator.

This second impression was reinforced by the gentle and loving caresses Professor Riddle showered upon the serpent, and the cold smile he gave it as he hissed to it in Parseltongue.

That was all that was going on, but for some reason it was as if an enchantment of some sort had been lifted, and she began in that moment to see him as everyone else had.  Something was wrong, twisted, and terrifying about Professor Riddle.

Worst of all, Hermione wasn't sure if that lessened or increased her crush on him.  She only knew that the longer she stood there, the more uncomfortable she became.  She could not bring herself to move, though, even as the snake slowly looked her over before coiling possessively one more loop around Professor Riddle.  She thought she could almost hear the snake's voice in her mind, claiming possession of him above any silly mudblood girl....

It's not a word Hermione would ever even think, but at that moment she felt it stab through her soul and lay seeds of self-doubt in her mind where none had been before.

Was it her imagination, or a trick of the light, or was that actually a smug grin upon Professor Riddle's mouth that she saw, just before she turned away and closed her eyes.

"Miss Granger, do close the door on your way out."

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, squeaking slightly as she choked back her reaction to being caught.  Hermione then closed the door quickly and ran from the room, not stopping until she reached her own bed.

That night, Hermione was woken, shivering, from no less than seven nightmares.


	7. Chapter 7

Sleep is a sanctuary easily breached.  When you are asleep, you are usually alone in your thoughts, sorting out your day and dreaming of things you couldn't imagine thinking of the rest of the time.  You play out fantasies.  Wishes and fears become one, and even the one who is sleeping can sometimes not tell one from the other.

It is a sanctuary because most wizards would not bother trying.  They've got their own dreams to deal with, after all, without getting into someone else's and trying to figure out the mass amounts of new symbology and sorting out the layers upon layers of meaning.

Still, there is some appeal to a few witches and wizards.  It is mostly those who cannot handle reality themselves, but once in a while a person's dreams will become the playground of the unscrupulous, gaining secrets or influence from their helpless victim.  To those sorts, there is no hesitation.  There are no limits to what they will do to gain power.

 

## Chapter Seven

## Once Upon Some Times

 

Ginny was asleep in Hermione's bed.  She didn't mind it in the least.  In fact, it was comforting to her, after a week of nightmares and jumping at shadows.

It had felt so good to laugh, and even better for some reason to admit out loud that Professor Riddle scared her, after all this time.

"For someone who is supposed to be the smartest girl in school, I'm certainly an idiot," she whispered to herself.

Anyone could memorize books, though, if they had the drive to do it.  It was a matter of application, determination, and will.  It was a matter of ambition.  Hermione had always had all of those, and then some to spare.  She craved recognition for her efforts, and thrived on congratulations for a job well done.

It was her greatest weakness.  It was the chink in her armor.

To be praised.

Nothing else would rob her of her judgment and send her beyond reason with joy than flattery that seemed sincere about something she'd worked hard at.

Nothing irritated her more than someone else getting recognition for something they did not deserve, especially if it robbed her of her own chance to shine.

She was aware of this weakness, actually.  She was quite aware of it, in fact.  All week she'd chided herself for it, as soon as she'd walked out of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.  Still she fell prey of it, blushing and raising her hand and acting like a kitten in need of being petted whenever there was a chance she might engender some hint of praise from Professor Riddle.

The problem was that she wasn't sure if it was a flaw, really.  Doing one's best was a good thing, and it was only right to be appreciated for it.  She was surprised more people didn't agree, but that wasn't really her problem.  It just made her shine brighter, in the end.  Of course, she also took pride in helping out her friends, to see them succeed as well as she did.

Pride, pride, pride, it was all about pride.  That was not the end all and be all of who she was, though.  It didn't have to consume her.

So, why did it?

Perhaps it was because she didn't have anything greater to believe in.  She'd always wondered what it would be like, if she did.

That's the last coherent thought she had before she, too, drifted off to sleep.

 

_Lately, Hermione's dreams have grown increasingly strange.  Her dreams have never made sense to her, but she's plagued by the growing feeling that something is off.   Since the project began, there's been the same old man, who is the same little boy, and he always looks at her with bright blue eyes as if she is the key to fixing it all.  Sometimes he looks to be around ten years old and has bright auburn hair and somewhat old-fashioned clothes.  Most of the time, though, he's an old man.  He wears glasses and has a long gray beard and his nose is long and crooked.  She thinks that that is how Merlin must have once looked, but she knows that that's not his name.  She thinks of him as Arthur, though that's not his name either, but she's sure she's gotten the first letter right at least._

_It doesn't matter.  There's something about him that is the opposite of Professor Riddle.  She doesn't feel drawn to him or attracted to him, but there is something warm about him that makes her simply like being in the same dream with him.  He's gentle and kind, and she knows that he would not shower her with excessive praise.  He would merely expect the best from her, and accept what her best is.  It is somehow more flattering and fulfilling than Riddle's grand words and great show._

_She's not sure why she thinks this way about him, though.  She's not sure why she compares them in her mind.  She feels like there's some reason, and that it's very important, but she doesn’t know why._

_The more she works on her time travel project, though, the more she sees him.  He's trying to tell her something important, but she doesn't know what._

_Tonight, they're vivid.  Immediate and real and full stereo and Technicolor._

_Tonight, it's time for the dreams to become real._

 

The old man sat in a room devoid of setting.  Everything around both of them was completely surrounded by a wall of gray mist, except for a desk and two chairs.  All three were oversized and ornate and appeared ancient, and she knew they must be part of the Hogwarts furniture somewhere, but she'd never had reason to be in the headmaster's office and did not recognize them.

"Ah, yes, at last, Miss Granger.  Please, sit down."

She was startled, but took the seat on the other side of the desk.  "You're the man I keep dreaming about, aren't you?"

He nodded, leaning toward her with his hands resting easily on top of the desk.  "That's right, and still right as this is still a dream.  I am Albus Dumbledore."

"Just a dream?"  Hermione slumped in disappointment, having somehow expected something more.

"Not entirely," he said slowly, cocking his head to the side as if considering his words carefully.  "The dream is simply the medium I have to use, to contact you here and now."

"Here and now?  Does that mean you are from...some other place or time?"

"In a manner of speaking."  Dumbledore smiled.  "From the same place, and only a year behind where you are now, but a different reality entirely."

"I knew it!" she squeaked excitedly.  "You're what happens when someone goes back in time and plays with history, aren't you?  I was right!"

"Actually, Miss Granger, you are."

Hermione opened her mouth to reply to that, but no sound came out.  What did he mean?  How could she be?  What event had been changed to create the world she was in now, and what did that mean for her future?

"I...I don't understand."

"At this point it is rather difficult to tell which timeline is the least touched by the contamination that has plagued reality here.  However, in most timelines I am quite alive, and am the headmaster at Hogwarts.  In yours, however, I was murdered at the age of ten and a half, under most mysterious circumstances, by a wizard who was never caught."

"Then, how are you here, and able to talk to me now?"

"It actually helps that I am not present in your reality at all.  I am, if I may put aside modesty for a moment, a rather accomplished Legilimens.  You do of course know what--"

"Yes, of course.  A witch of wizard who knows Legilimency, which is extracting thoughts and feelings from another, similar to what Muggles think of as mind reading but--"

"Thank you, Miss Granger.  That will do."  He smiled proudly at her, and instead of feeling slighted by being interrupted, she felt that familiar warm comfort that so strangely surrounded him.  "I am not here to grade you on your knowledge.  I simply want to make sure you know what it is I will be asking of you."

"Yes, sir," she said, nodding slightly.  Just after the words came out she questioned herself calling him "sir", when he seemed like just a kindly old man.  Yes, he may have been headmaster at Hogwarts somewhere else, but he certainly wasn't at her Hogwarts.  Still, he somehow just seemed like someone that one would want to call "sir" out of respect.

He smiled, and she could tell he appreciated the compliment.  "You must understand," he went on now, with a more serious and somber expression, "how very difficult this is, to speak to you from another timeline."

"Yes, of course, it would have to be."

"So, when I say we need your help, and no other Hermione I have found can help us more than you can, I want you to know that we cannot afford false modesty.  I need your help, your friend Ron needs your help, and I think that most of all, Harry needs your help."

She looked at him blankly for a minute.  "Harry?"  The only Harry she knew--  "You can't possibly mean Harry Potter, can you?"

Dumbledore nodded slowly, though.  "That is exactly who I mean."

"Isn't he a bit beyond my help, sir?"  She looked at him as if he were insane.  "Harry Potter, and his entire family, died five years ago."

"If that is the case," the old man stated, looking older than ever, "then he needs your help more than I suspected."

Hermione stared.  "Do you mean to say, sir, that I could possibly save him?"

"I mean to say, Hermione Granger, that you are the only one who could."


	8. Chapter 8

Fear is the opposite of power.  It is a thief and destroyer.  It makes even the most powerful people to be small.

Fear of death is one of the most common fears, and one that seems inescapable for most people.  Yes, some people come to accept death, and others even welcome it as a release from what they see as a life no longer worth the pain of living.

The fear comes, of course, from death being an unknown and unknowable state.  Fear of the unknown is almost universal among all humans, be they witch, wizard, or Muggle.

Bravery is not the absence of fear.  It is the state of being afraid, but doing what you must do, and do what is right, to vanquish the fear.

Cowards are those who let their fears rule them and drive them to inhumane means to rid themselves of whatever it is that they fear.

Voldemort, of course, is the highest order of coward and bully.  He fears death.  He fears being powerless.  He goes to extreme lengths to banish those fears, but they chase him anyway and shall be his downfall.  He'll deny to the very end that he is a coward, but he is, and he attracts others of his kind.

I'd rather be on the side of love and compassion, where my death means nothing to me if it is a death where I protect another.  I fear it, yes, but not so much that I will let it rule me.  Then again, I have not yet died, so this idea may actually be a bit short sighted of me.

 

## Chapter Eight

## A Fool For a Pair of Green Eyes

 

Severus thought for a long time about what James Potter had said.  There was so much going on, though, that it was hard to think about it rationally.  For a while he was furious that Potter had spoken down to him like that, as always, and it was the same resentment and hate as he'd had for years.  He couldn't get past it, really.  Black and Potter were bullies and show-offs and he wanted nothing to do with them.  Lupin was little better, though a little quieter.  Pettigrew had been a sickening little sycophant.   If the rest of them all died tomorrow, he'd throw a party.  In fact, they deserved to have one of their group killed.  It had taught them a lesson that they'd sorely needed to learn.

So, why hadn't he been able to get the image of the dying boy out of his mind?  It was slowly driving him mad.  Every time he closed his eyes, it was all he could see.  Blood and bruises and a twitch and bones bared and gleaming white against the darkness around them guarded over by werewolf eyes and howling and howling and howling filling his ears and he was thankful that the howls drowned out what Potter said and wished the howls had drown out the horrible last sound of--

Severus stood up suddenly, deciding at the last minute that he could not stand the utter silence of his own dorm room while everyone else attended the memorial being held for Pettigrew.  It was Saturday already, but it still felt as fresh as if it had just happened.  He, alone, had been excused, but he'd been alone for only five minutes before he realized he just could not deal with it like this.

The memorial was held in the Great Hall, so that the students would not feel the temptation to abandon their classes en masse for the funeral on Monday.  It had become an all too common practice lately, though the deaths did not usually occur on the school grounds.  They simply disappeared at other times, and for the most part Severus did not complain.  Those who died were all mudbloods and Muggle lovers anyway, and he had no great love for any other student at the school to begin with.

It was strange.  When he wanted to be alone, he was surrounded by idiots.  When he was alone, he found himself wishing for company.

It didn't make sense, until he reminded himself that, around others or not, what it was that he really craved was company worth having.  So far, it had not yet happened.  Even this change of heart with Black and Potter had not changed his mind on that one.  Not after all they'd put him through, before.  If it was guilt that made them so friendly, now, he'd rather watch them squirm.  It was only what they deserved, after all.

He walked from the Slytherin rooms to the Great Hall, scowling as he went.  This wasn't going to help, but sitting alone on his bed and sulking wasn't helping, either.  When he reached the great double doors, he stood there, just outside, for a few moments.  He could hear, but he didn't listen.  He could see, but he wasn't watching.  He just stood there, knowing that this was a mistake.

Severus nearly turned right around and walked back, but his feet rebelled and he found himself walking in and standing at the back.  He wasn't the only one standing, either.  Prefects were standing at different positions, making sure a certain level of decorum was maintained, especially by the younger students.  Lily Evans and James Potter were both toward the back, as well, as Head Girl and Head Boy, respectively.  Severus watched them, standing perfectly straight and perfectly still.  They didn't spot him when he walked in, and he stood just inside the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, just behind them, to ensure that it remained that way.

Professor Dumbledore is the one who stood at the front, speaking to everyone and extolling the virtues that Pettigrew had demonstrated in his short (and pathetic, in Severus's opinion) life.  Loyalty, bravery, intelligence, breeding...by the end, Dumbledore had made Pettigrew out to be the quintessential student at Hogwarts, exemplifying every virtue of every house.  It was enough to make Severus sick, though it seemed to move everyone else in the room.

On top of it all, though, every word seemed to cut into Severus's soul with guilt and blame and so much envy it seemed he couldn't contain it.  If he'd just stood still for it, it would be his own corpse being carted off to his mother right now.  What would Dumbledore be saying now, if he'd died instead as the attacker had intended?  Severus knew that no one thought of him as a paragon of perfection, but neither was Pettigrew.

No, he'd just had the right friends.

It wasn't fair, he thought furiously as he balled his hands into fists.  Ah, but that was the story of his life.  It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, and he worked hard just to be outshone by foolish jerks who had everything handed to them because they were better looking or talented at Quidditch.  They knew how to say just the right things, and didn't care about anyone else past making the masses fawn over them.

Severus knew his resentment was unreasonable, of course.  He knew that others could just shrug thoughts like this off and go on with life as if they didn't matter.  It only made him feel worse, worthless, that he could not.

It was almost over, and Dumbledore was winding down.  Girls were in tears, boys stared ahead stoically, and Severus felt alone in his loathing.  He ducked around the corner and stood there, on the other side of the doorway, staring at nothing while he tried to erase it all from his mind.

If it had been him, no one would have cried.

No one would have cared.

He heard a whisper from the other room.  "Snape!  Don't go anywhere after this."

Severus turned around to look at James, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, though he still stood there as rigid as ever.  Lily Evans looked like she was about to say something, appearing shocked, but she returned her eyes to the front a moment later and closed her mouth with a snap.

As if he'd stay.

In fact, Severus took a perverse pleasure in making long strides away from there, hesitating only a moment before he stepped outside.  There was a chill in the air, and a few distant clouds that threatened rain if no one took them seriously enough, but it was disturbingly pleasant anyway.  Pleasant enough, too, that he didn't think Potter would come outside to look for him.

He found a tree in the opposite direction from where Potter had directed him the other day and sat down beneath it.  So much for surrounding himself with others to block out the memories.  Listening to the memorial service had only made it worse, and added things on top of it.

It was downright depressing, and it pissed him off.  He couldn't concentrate on anything.  He hadn't been able to sleep longer than an hour or two in the last few days, and he was considering sneaking into Slughorn's office to nick some ingredients and brew up a sleeping potion.  He didn't want to admit he had a problem, or that Pettigrew's death had had such an effect on him, or he might just ask Professor Slughorn or Madam Pomfrey directly.  It was preferable to lowering himself to petty theft, under usual circumstances, but his pride could not resolve one side or another on this issue, and without his pride he had nothing.

Being outside, in the shade, and listening to the leaves rustle in the breeze that was steadily picking up, all conspired against him.  He started out staring up at the turning leaves, not falling yet, but changing from peaceful green to bright orange, red, and yellow.  Like a forest lit by a fire that does not burn, almost.  The leaves moved hypnotically.  Everything was leaving him hazy and drifting, and a little nap wouldn't hurt after all.

Someone cautiously touched him on the shoulder, and the sun had raced across the sky.  He immediately grabbed his wand, defensive, but it only took a moment to realize he was not in danger.  Not exactly.

"Sorry.  James has been looking for you, so I thought I'd find you first."

It was the Evans girl, smiling at him and bending over him.

What the devil had brought her out here?  He wiped off his face on his sleeve, realizing he'd been drooling (and probably snoring) in his sleep.  Well, if this wasn't just perfect on top of everything else...

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"Oh, that's right," she said, straightening and giving him a disgusted look.  "I'd forgotten my blood isn't blue enough to be permitted to talk to you.  I just thought I'd warn you that James, Sirius, and Remus have been looking around for you, and if you're avoiding another round of the usual you might want a little warning this time.  But, since you're--"

"Do you need someone to hold the nails while you hammer yourself to that cross?"

"What is your problem, anyway?  Aren't people allowed to be nice to you?"

Severus glared.  "I don't need your pity, Evans."

"Do you hate yourself so much that it's got to be pity, for a pretty girl to talk to you?"

"Do you have to work to be so vain?  Or did it rub off by association with Potter?"

Her cheeks turned pink, and her eyes flashed a more vivid green from the contrast.  "Just because we're both in the same house--"

"Not to debate the finer points of association," he interrupted in a dry tone, "but you can rest assured that Potter isn't out to humiliate me and make my pathetic life even less worth living.  At least, not this week."

"You're impossible, you know that?  I don't know why I bother to try."

Severus stood, brushing off his robes with a sigh and muttered under his breath.  "That makes two of us."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but they both gave up rather easily at the sound of a potential distraction in the form of Black, Potter, and Lupin all running toward them.

He slumped against the tree, not sure if he was irritated or relieved by the interruption.  Merlin's beard!  That girl made him feel so damned awkward!


	9. Chapter 9

If nothing is impossible, wouldn't that make the impossible, impossible?

 

## Chapter Nine

## In Which the Impossible, Isn't

 

James tucked the map into his pocket as they ran across the grounds.  He was more surprised than anything to see that Lily and Snape were talking to each other.  What could it possibly be about?  It had to have been an accident, or coincidence, or something like that.

"What's going on here?" he asked, panting slightly as he stopped at the tree.  "The two of you having a tryst or something behind my back?"

"You're joking, right?" Lily said, not looking pleased by the idea.  "I'd rather date you, and that's quite a leap there."

"Actually, so would I," Snape added with a sneer.

James was torn.  Two perfect openings, and he didn't know which one to take!  Would he rather tease Snape about his possible proclivities, or would he rather tease Lily to see if the chance she'd actually go out with him had increased?

Oh, what a dilemma.

Sirius, bless his soul, picked it up for him.  "Oh, so would I!  While we are all declaring our undying love for the Great James Potter, let me add my voice to the chorus!"  He bent down on one knee, striking a pose from every classic illustration depicting such a declaration.

Remus shook his head and nudged Sirius on the shoulder.  "Come on--not today, okay?  And if any of you so much as thinks a pun about 'black humor' to encourage him, I'll turn around and leave right now."

James bit his lip to keep from snickering, noticing that the others except for Snape were all in about the same state.  "Remus, you're terrible.  And you know Peter would have rather us laughed, especially today."

"I know," he replied with a subdued smile.  "Still...we were his best mates.  I don't think everyone else would understand that."  He gave Lily a significant glance, offering her an apologetic grimace when he saw she was looking at him, too.

She was offering him a soft smile of her own when Snape interrupted impatiently. 

"For the love of--" he started, then cut himself off.  "What are you all doing here?  What do you want?"

The trio turned serious, for the moment ignoring Lily's presence in the small gathering.   "It's about a few things we've been looking up," James explained.

Remus nodded and took over.  "I've been trying to figure out what it would take for someone to disappear in the manner the three of you described.  We all know fairly well that the protections on Hogwarts prevent such a thing from happening in normal situations.  With attacks from the Death Eaters on the rise, security is tighter than ever, so what happened should have been impossible.  The only way it should be possible around here to disappear is--" he glanced at James--"by some sort of invisibility.  However, that is not the case."

"Thank you for the lovely synopsis," Snape rolled his eyes.  "I was there, if you'll remember.  I know all of this already."

Sirius was picking himself and dusting off his knees.  "You might want to be a tad bit more polite, if you were wanting that revenge you're so keen on.  Think that might be possible?"

"Sirius," James said patiently, "We need his help, polite or not."

Snape sneered.  "And if you want that help, maybe you're the one who--"

"Wait a minute!"  Lily made her way into the middle of them all, holding her hands out.  "What's this all about?"

"It doesn't involve you," Snape snapped, immediately.

"Much as I hate to agree with him on this," James said slowly, "You should probably take off now, before you're any more involved."

Lily looked between them and then sat down directly on the ground, looking rebellious.  "It's too late for that, don't you think?"

Remus moved toward her, quickly.  "It's for your own good, really."

She glared at him, and he backed off immediately.

"Lily, be reasonable," Sirius tried.

"Who said I'm not being reasonable?  You're the 'boys only' club that tried to ignore I existed.  Now, tell me what this revenge is that you're talking about, and why the three of you," she pointed to James, Sirius, and Remus, "are talking to Snape about it.  I thought you all hated each other."

"Oh, we still do," Snape said in a low voice.

"Of course we don't," James protested at the same time.

"Don't look at me," Sirius said with an amused twist to his lips.  "We've got a common goal, is all, if you ask me.  James is the one who has gone all noble, and wants to make a project of the little slime."

Remus just groaned, shaking his head and refusing to get in the middle of it.

"Project?" Snape sputtered.

"That's not--" James began helplessly, and then looked at Sirius, who was almost laughing.  "You're not helping.  Remind me to kick you, later."

"Boys," Lily scoffed, still seated in the grass.  "You do need me, you know.  If for no other reason, than to tell you when you're all being silly and counter-productive."

"Like now?" James said.

"Exactly."  Lily said.  "Come on, fill me in.  With all of us here, we've got the best and brightest at the school, even if some of us have the worst attitudes at the school."

"We do not need that girl's help!" Snape insisted, waving his arms around.

"As a misogynist and a bigot, you'd be a complete waste if you weren't so damned intelligent," Lily said coldly.  "Now sit down, shut up, and help fill me in on all of the details so that we don't waste any more time."

Strangely enough, he did.  In fact, they all did.  There was something about her tone that none of them wanted to cross.  The four boys sat there, looking at each other, all with an expectant look as if they were waiting for someone else to begin telling the tale.

There was a very pregnant pause before James found himself telling his side of the story, omitting nothing.  As he did, he realized he probably shouldn't be making a project of making Snape a better person.  He had to start working on himself, and hope that some day Snape would forgive him for what he'd done, and what he'd almost done.  It wasn't even the looks of disgust and hurt on Lily and Remus's faces, respectively.  It wasn't the furious humiliation on Snape's face, either, as he recounted the "prank" that led up to the whole thing.

He'd been a terrible friend to Peter, and a terrible human being to Snape.  It was funny how a great tragedy could open a person's eyes, and how it had an even greater effect when you were admitting that it was largely your own fault.

The one part he did skip was the part about slipping into the kitchens, afterward.  He simply said, "After they were through getting the story out of us, Sirius and I thought it would be best to team up together with Snape.  He's almost as good with potions as you, after all," he added with a weak smile.  "Oh, and almost as good with hexes as I am."

"It's amazing what adversity will prompt someone to learn," Lily said dryly.

Snape had fallen into a thoughtful silence by the end of the narrative, hunched over with his knees against his chest and his arms locked around them.  He was looking downward, and his dark eyes were somewhat glazed over, as if trapped by his own inner thoughts.

"Yeah, it is," James said guiltily, then crawled over to sit down next to Snape.  "Sorry."

Snape looked up at him, eyes narrowed.  "I won't help you score points with your girl by telling you it's all fine and dandy that you've treated me like shit for years, Potter."

"I didn't expect you to.  I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't say it."

"And that makes it all better?"

James shook his head.  "No.  It's just the right thing to do, even if you hate me forever for it."

"Oh, believe me, I will," Snape replied with a glare.

Sirius clapped his hands together and rubbed them, grinning.  "Well, that saves me the attempt, since we already know he won't accept any apologies."

Remus covered his face with his hands and let them slide down slowly, every inch of him showing his body expressing his exasperation.  "Sirius...."

"What?" he asked with a shameless grin.

"You're incorrigible, impossible, and completely without shame."

"Thank you," Sirius grinned.  "It runs in the family."

"That's not something to be proud of," Remus protested.

"Can't help it.  I'll take those bad traits over the others, any day of the week, though."

"Well..."

"Boys," Lily said again, flopping back in the grass.  There was something warmer about it this time, though, and they all grinned at least a little at the warm camaraderie they were beginning to feel with this new group dynamic.


	10. Chapter 10

If you were in a room, alone, that was pure white, what would you do?  I'm talking carpet, walls, ceiling, furniture...everything.  What would you do?  How would it make you feel?

Some people would sit back and relax, at peace.  Some people wouldn't be able to stand it, crawling the walls to get out because they wouldn't feel like they belonged.

And then some people would pull out a crayon, or marker, or paint...and turn the huge blank canvas into a work of art.

There's no right answer, and there's no wrong answer, but it's one that Muggle psychologists pay close attention to for some reason.

 

## Chapter Ten

## The Bitter, and the Sweet

 

Hermione closed the book and took a deep breath.  She knew what she needed to do now, and she knew that she could do it.  It had taken time to do everything, preparing the spell and making potions that might be of help and most of all making a pair of amulets that would allow her to stay in contact with Ginny.  She planned the spell so it would take as much time here as it did for her, personally, while she was gone.  With Christmas break upon them, it seemed like the perfect time.

"There.  I've told my parents that I'll be doing a very involved project over vacation, but I didn't tell them what it was.  Just that I'll be away the entire time.  The school thinks I'll just be going home."

Ginny looked at her and nodded.  "I've filled my parents in, in case anything goes wrong.  Mum is upset, but she knew the Potters and she said that if there's any chance you can save them, she won't stop you."

"She knew them?  What a small world..."

Ginny smiled sadly.  "Her little brother, my uncle I guess, was in the same dorm as Harry's father.  Mum seems to have been rather fond of him...of James Potter, I mean.  At least it seems that way, from the owl she sent the other day."

Hermione nodded, locking her trunk and hefting the bag she'd filled to take "home" with her.  "Ron doesn't know, does he?"

Ginny shook her head.  "He'd just worry if I told him before you left.  He can worry all he wants after you're gone."

"You're a great friend, Ginny."  Hermione gave her a quick, tight hug and then took a step back.  "You're all packed, I'm all packed, and we've still got a little bit of time left.  Should we go down and see if there's anyone to say our goodbyes to in the Great Hall?"

Ginny nodded, smiling and holding the amulet she had around her neck.  "This is going to be the strangest holiday of my life."

"Mine, too," Hermione laughed.  They walked downstairs, waving to others either sitting or rushing about through the Gryffindor common room, and then out the hole and past the portrait of the fat lady, wishing her cheery holidays as they went.

They reached the Great Hall where some students were playing, and others were studying, and everyone seemed excited and relaxed and ready for the holidays.  Hermione felt like she stood out, being as nervous as she was.  Ginny plopped down in an empty seat at random and started chatting up a cute Ravenclaw boy that Hermione only knew in passing.  Hermione, on the other hand, was standing as stiff as a board, looking around the room and wondering that she didn't really have anything to say to anyone.

She was just shy of pacing around the room.  "I'll be right back," she murmured to Ginny, leaving her to her flirting.  Hermione left quickly, to just wander around the corridors, wondering why she'd felt the need to rush down here when she'd been so much more comfortable in her own room.

"Miss Granger!"

When had she wandered so far away?  The corridor was dark, and she was alone, and she froze at the familiar voice as ice shot through her veins.  She licked her lips nervously and then turned around, smiling weakly.  Had she done something wrong?  Had she wandered into the wrong area without thinking?  "Yes, Professor Riddle?"  The sound of her voice seemed unbearably weak, drowned out as it was by the sound of her own heart pounding.

He gave her a winning smile and she felt a bit relieved.  "You're going home for the holidays, aren't you?"

"Y-yes.  That's right."

"It's too bad.  I had hoped to have a chance to talk to you about your paper on time travel."

"Is something wrong with it, sir?"  She swallowed, hard, hands clenched at her sides so that he would not see them trembling.

"On the contrary," he practically purred.  "I'm very impressed by it.  You've grasped the concepts better than anyone I have ever spoken to.  Better, I'd say, than anyone currently working for the Ministry."

"Oh, no, I'm s-sure that's not the case," she stammered, ducking her head and clasping her hands before her.

Professor Riddle walked right up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.  "But I am, and that is what matters, isn't it?"  His hand was cold, and his voice had a bit of a hiss to it that reminded her of that night, and the snake, and it made her think he must be as cold blooded as the serpent he'd been so lovingly entwined with.  "I wouldn't be surprised if you took everything you learned and tried it for your own good, in fact.  Not that I doubt your integrity, Miss Granger, but I know how terribly tempting I'd find such a thing myself, at your age."

"N-no!  Of course not!"  Her cheeks warmed and she knew they must be a bright shade of red, but she couldn't help it.  He'd hit her where it would sting her the most.  Hermione couldn't stand the thought that she was breaking school rules with what she planned on doing, but also probably a dozen laws she'd been too afraid to look up.  "I'd never do anything of the sort!"

"Don't lie to me, Miss Granger.  I can see the truth in your eyes."  His voice grew more sibilant, and the smile was completely gone.  "I want you to think very hard about what it is that you are planning on doing.  With one wrong move, you'll destroy everything.  No more Weasleys.  No more Hogwarts.  No more Hermione Granger.  I'm sure that is not what you wish.  Once you leave school property, I won't be able to protect you from your folly, but please know I only have your best interests at heart with this most grave and dire warning."

Warning?  It seemed more like a threat with him leaning so close, practically whispering in her ear.

He grinned, and it was the grin of a predator.  "Give my best to Molly and Arthur, will you?"

Professor Riddle walked away into the shadows, and about a minute after that Hermione felt like she could breathe again.

 

"But how did he know?"  Hermione and Ginny were sitting in their own compartment on the Hogwarts Express, both looking pale after going over what had happened.

"I don't know," Hermione said to Ginny's question.  "He just did.  And that last bit, where he said to say hello to your parents, and he called them by name.  It gives me the shivers just thinking about it."

"We'll have to tell them, as soon as we get home.  They'll know what to do."  Ginny sounded firm, and the look in her eyes said she wouldn't accept any argument on the subject.

"No!"  Hermione had to try, anyway.  "They'll forbid me from trying, and I have to!  Don't you understand?  Harry Potter was in my class.  He was so bright, and so cheerful!  And I remember meeting his mother, too, and she was so pretty and I remember thinking when I saw them all at platform nine and three-quarters the first time that when I grew up I wanted to have a family just like theirs.  They were so perfect, and they didn't deserve to die, and the old man in my dream is counting on me.  I'd feel more horrible letting him down than I am scared that Professor Riddle will do anything to me."

"If you won't tell her, I will."

"Ginny, please..."

"She won't tell you no," Ginny started, but the door slid open and Ron stepped inside.

"Who won't tell you no about what?" he asked as he flopped down next to Hermione casually.

"None of your business," Ginny said, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

"One of those, huh?  Fine.  I'll get it out of Hermione."  He offered Hermione a playful grin.

"You will not," she protested, looking away and blushing slightly.  When had Ron Weasley gotten so cute, anyway?  For some reason, it had only been in the last few months that she'd started seeing him any differently from their first year, when he'd walked around with a smudge of dirt the first day she'd met him, and hadn't been much neater since.  The freckles had always made him look like such a little kid, too.  So, when had that changed?

"C'mon, 'Mione.  Please?"  Ron looked at her with a huge pair of sad puppy eyes.  "You can tell me.  I promise I won't let Ginny beat you up over it, whatever it is."

"Oh, for pity's sake," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.  "As if I would!"

"Of course you would," he teased with a grin that threatened to make Hermione's toes curl.  "Why else wouldn't she tell you?"

It had to be from playing Quidditch the last couple of years.  That's where he'd gotten such a nice body.

"This isn't fair!" Hermione squeaked out loud.  She immediately covered her mouth, though, turning an even more vivid shade of pink.  She hadn't meant to say that!

"What's not fair?" Ron asked cluelessly.

"Nothing!"

Ginny knew better, of course.  She gave Hermione a smug grin and touched the pendant.  _You've got a crush on my brother.  That's so gross!  And Ron, out of all of them.  You'd be much better off with Bill or Charlie or even Fred or George.  Though, I suppose he's a little better than Percy._

Hermione looked away, blushing harder than ever, but not daring to respond even by the same method.

"Hermione, it is so something.  I heard you myself, you know."

"Oh, look.  We'll be at the station soon," she said instead, pointing out the window.

"Fine, don't answer," he pouted.

Ginny was all but laughing at them, holding her winter coat in her hands and hiding her face in it.

"We should grab our things, that's all," Hermione said as she stood up.

"Why are you two keeping things from me?  It's not fair, you know.  I'm always out of the loop."

Hermione was about to actually spill it, telling him everything, because she couldn't handle the guilt anymore.  Cute boy, her age, and possibly interested in her if he could see her as something other than his little sister's best friend.  Sure, he wasn't the brightest boy in school, but he was protective and sweet and rather funny and always fun to be with when she did hang out with him.

Thankfully, Ginny solved it.  "We're talking about girl things.  I was telling her that Mum wouldn't say no to going out to a Muggle shop to buy supplies for that time of the month, since Hermione forgot to bring her own."

Ron turned so red that his freckles looked pale.  "I can't know that!  I did not just hear that!  You're so gross, Ginny!  You did not just say...ah!"  He covered his ears and ran out of the compartment.

They didn't stop laughing until at least five minutes after they left the train.


	11. Chapter 11

An even greater man (in this author's humble opinion) than the previous great man once said, "Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them."

Sugar.  Tobacco.  Alcohol.  Heroin.  They all become hardwired into our brains as something we need, even when they are destroying us.

Ah, but those are the easy things to see.  Sometimes it's not so easy.  Why do the good girls like the bad boys, for instance?  If you ask the girl, she'll say she wants to be treated right and that she wants a good guy to settle down with and take care of her, but in the mean time she sees darkness and danger and she's drawn like a moth to a flame.

It's just some quirk of human nature.  Even the best and strongest among us are not immune.

 

 

## Chapter Eleven

## Off the Edge of the World

 

"You're not seriously going to let her do this?" Ron asked for about the hundredth time.  Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were tired enough of him asking that they didn't even bother glaring at him, or responding in any way.  They just kept setting things up for Hermione.

"Ron, come on.  I thought you and Harry were best friends, back before..."

"We were!  But come on, Hermione.  If we start using time travel to fix everything that goes wrong, where do we stop?  I mean, who knows what could happen?"

"That's what the old man in my dream said.  It already *has* happened!"

"And you're going to trust some dream, all the sudden.  I suppose you'll start taking Divination next, and hold séances to get all the right answers on your N.E.W.T.S."

"Of course not!"  She glared furiously at him, precisely because she knew just how silly it sounded, and would have reacted the same way to anyone else it had happened to.

"Ron, dear, get over here and help your sister reach that jar on the top shelf, would you?"  Molly Weasley interrupted.

"Sure, Mum," he muttered, turning away from Hermione to do as he'd been told.

"Don't be sore," Ginny piped in.  "You're just worried because you like her, and you think she's cute, and you're scared you'll never see her again."

"I--what?  Am not!"  He had just reached the jar, and almost dropped it on his head.  "That's not it at all!"

"Ginny, it's not nice to tease your brother when he's doing something that could get himself killed," Mrs. Weasley said, looking a bit amused.

"The _point_ is, I've researched recent history, and I think this Dumbledore person is right!  There have been unexplained temporal fluxes, and they all seem to point in the same direction!"

"How would you know?  If you're right, and not just completely mental, things would be all changed before anyone could know what's supposed to have happened."

Hermione shook her head.  "Not entirely.  That seems to be the case with this 'Albus Dumbledore' person.  His brother grew up to be a complete mental case, and no one else in his family was at all notable.  I can't find much on them at all, but they did exist, and it was apparently a great mystery when he was killed.  That was all.  No proof that he'd grow up opposing the Dark Arts at all, or anything.  With everyone else I've looked into, though, there's a pattern."

"Yeah.  They're all dead."  Ron handed the jar to his mother and flopped down on the couch.  "I don't see why everyone else doesn't see what I do.  You've just studied too hard and gone nutty.  I've heard it happens to seventh years all the time, and that's why we shouldn't be given so much homework.  Especially over vacation!"

"I don't have time to debate this with you, Ron.  I'm going.  I need to do this, and I do believe I am the only one who can."

"Then I'm going with you," he said, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest.

"You are not!" Ginny protested shrilly.  "If anyone is, I am!"

"Neither of you are going," Mrs. Weasley said firmly.  "You said it yourself, you've got homework, Ron.  And without you here, Ginny, how would we keep in touch with Hermione to make sure nothing's gone wrong?"

"I'll take my homework with me, then," Ron said.  "Who knows what could happen where she's going?  It's always best to have someone you can trust to back you up, isn't it?"

"This is not open for discussion, Ron," Mrs. Weasley said firmly.

"I'm sorry," Hermione mouthed the words to him, really wishing he could go, now, because it probably would be safer to bring someone along.  Unfortunately, it would be a lot harder to take someone with her as well, and she hadn't prepared the spell for more than one person alone.  Not that the spell needed to be changed if she did, really, but it would be a bit more taxing on her the way she had it set up, so that the time flow would allow her to stay in touch with Ginny as if they were in the same time frame.

If Molly Weasley said no, though, it wasn't really worth working out at all, to see if she could or not.  The Weasley matriarch may be a nice woman and sweet as they come, but she was also one of the most stubborn people Hermione had ever met.  It was perfectly clear that that's where Ginny had gotten it from, actually, because she was very much like her mother.

Ron shrugged and gave up.  "So, when are you planning on doing this thing, then?"

"As soon as possible," Hermione said quietly, opening up a book.  "It will take at least another ten minutes."

"That's all?  Ten minutes?"

Ginny snickered.  "You look like a kicked puppy.  Sad that she won't be here the whole time?"

"I thought," Ron began tragically, "well, I mean, at least for presents..."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said again, this time louder than the last.  "I have to start as quickly as I can, though.  I've done all the research I can, so I know what I'm doing and where I'm going at least.  So, I'll be as quick as possible, and maybe it'll only take a couple of days and I'll be back in time for presents."

"You'd better," Ron said, still looking like he wanted to pout.  "I can't wait to see your face when you see what I got for you."

"You got me a present?"  Her heart skipped a beat, unexpectedly.

"Well, of course I did.  You're here for the holidays.  Or, at least, you were supposed to be."

"Thank you, Ron."  She didn't know what else to do, or to say, so she gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.  "I've left presents for everyone with Ginny, and don't you dare open yours before Christmas, and I hope we really can open them together."

"You'd better get started," Mrs. Weasley said softly, putting a hand on Hermione's shoulder.

Ron, in the mean time, was doing a fantastic fish impersonation and holding his cheek.  Hermione stifled a giggle and turned, double-checking that she had everything she needed, and then opened her notebook.

"No one cross this line," Hermione instructed, "and nobody touch me once I've started, or you will be dragged along with me, and I'll probably pass out once we get there."

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen," Mrs. Weasley said with a grin.

"Goodbye, everyone.  Wish me luck."  Hermione smiled a little sadly, but she put on as brave a face as she could.

Everyone waved, and then Mrs. Weasley ushered everyone out of the living room and into the kitchen as Hermione started.

"Mum, there's something I think is important that Hermione made me promise not to tell you until she was gone."

Hermione overheard that as she was in the middle of the long incantation required, but she couldn't let it distract her.  It was close enough, after all.  It wasn't stoppable at this point.  An interruption would only throw off her timing, and no one would want to do that.

It's about that time that fate began twisting things, and sticking her fingers in the pie.  It started with a loud knock on the front door that almost made Hermione lose count of how many drops of sage essence she was supposed to drop on the tip of her wand.  She missed one drop, which fell on her hand, but she accounted for that and continued.  She then dipped the wand in a cup of dried herbs she'd prepared, and began the necessary transfiguration.

"Open up!" someone shouted, even as they smashed down the door.

Hermione could hear Ginny screaming, but she couldn't even afford to look.  She was almost done.  She wondered if they were from the Ministry of Magic, but if they were then something was terribly wrong.  They couldn't have known so quickly, or come so quickly, and they definitely should not be behaving the way they were.  Hermione was too distracted to put her finger on it, but she didn't think they were from the Ministry at all.

"Stop it right now!  Stop her!"  The voice was familiar, though changed by an uncharacteristic undertone of panic.

A handful of wizards in complete black except for skull masks rushed toward her, wands at the ready.  They did not cross the line she'd drawn around herself, not knowing what would happen if they did.  It was a standard precaution, and usually wise when someone was casting such advanced magic.  Two of them glanced back as if asking what to do, while the others shouted at her to stop what she was doing.

"Stop her!" Professor Riddle cried again, shriller and louder than before.  "Just do not kill--"

"Hermione!"  Ron had run into the room, rushing past the robed figures, the Death Eaters of modern myth and legend who ruled the wizarding world from the shadows.

And that meant Professor Riddle must be their secret leader, whose name was only ever whispered or alluded to in secret as if he would appear like some demon of hell if he heard his name.

Hermione didn't have time to think of anything else.  She didn't have time to process her shock.  Ron was beside her in an instant to shield her with his own body if need be from whatever curses they cast to stop her.

For a moment it felt as if the world had stopped around them.  It was Ron, and it was Hermione, and that was all.  He stood merely inches from her, arms outstretched, looking her in the eyes.

"I won't let anything hurt you."

Hermione stared at him, nodding, and then hugged him tight as she felt the spell take hold.  "I know," she whispered.

An eternal instant later, the world went crazy around them, and it felt as if they'd stepped off the edge of the world.


	12. Chapter 12

It's time to start talking about love.

It's the most overused cliché in the book, right?  Love this, love that, love is all you need, love can save the world, love, love, love.

Honestly, what sort of power does love really have?

Let's start with a mother's love for her child.  It may not be universal in a world so overpopulated, but the vast majority of mothers begin with an overwhelming love for their child from the first time they find out that they are going to have a baby.  It is protective and pure and self-sacrificing.  Dismiss it as instinctive, if you'd like, but a mother's love is one stronger than most people can even conceive, until and unless they feel it too.

Remember that this is where a person first learns about power?  The baby cries, the mother comes, and the baby has his first lesson in power over others.  The fundamentals of power are established, and how the baby sees the world.  A loving mother will instill confidence.  The child will begin to know that they do have power in this world.  A neglectful mother will teach her child that he can't rely on his mother, and he will crave power without understanding why he needs to prove that he has power when so many others seem so content with what they've got.

Mothers have the power from the very start to shape the future of the world, by how much they love, and how willing they are to give up a bit of their power for the love of their child.

We've barely scraped the surface of just how powerful a force love is.

 

## Chapter Twelve

## Just a Little Rest

 

Hermione kept her eyes closed, not wanting to wake up or move or do anything that would disturb the warm comfort she was enjoying right now.  There was something terribly urgent that she was supposed to be attending to, but she couldn't think of what it was at all.  She was just warm and content and being held close against someone's chest and listening to his heartbeat.

"Hermione," he whispered, shaking her a little.

"Five more minutes, Dad..."

That wasn't her father, though.  The voice was all wrong.  In fact, everything was.  Size, scent, weight.

Hermione frowned and forced herself to open her eyes.  "Who--?"

"Come on, Hermione.  You've got to wake up.  I'm sorry I screwed up the spell, but they--"

She reached up and covered his mouth.  "Hush.  I'm not upset.  Just a little fuzzy.  Around the edges.  You're Ron, right?"

"Who else would I be?"  He gave her a skeptical look for a minute before letting her go, slowly.  "Are you going to be okay?"

"I hope so," she said slowly, struggling to balance on her own to feet.  "That was a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"I'm sorry.  I really am.  I know Professor Riddle told them not to kill you, but I thought, I mean they didn't look, and what if they didn't listen to him, and you couldn't do anything, so I just did it and--"

"Don't forget, I know plenty of spells to get you to shut up.  Don't make me use any right now, please?"

Ron shut his mouth right away and nodded quickly.

Hermione let things stand at that for a minute, seeing if he'd push his luck while she got her bearings.  He kept his mouth shut, though, and her head cleared at last.  "Here, you should hold onto one of these."

He held out his hand, and she dropped a small blue egg into his palm.  "What's this?" he asked, holding it up to his eye.

"It's your ticket home, in case anything happens to me."

"What do you mean?  Nothing's going to happen to you.  And why do you have two of them, anyway?"

Hermione sighed and rubbed her eyes.  There was dust in the air, and it was irritating her.  "I made a few of them.  Dumbledore warned me that I'd need to bring people with me, later on."

"So, wait a minute, I thought you said it would take too much out of you.  Right?"

Hermione looked around.  They seemed to be in a barn of some sort, and she sat down on a bale of hay so that she could explain.  "That's what I said, yes.  If you'll remember, I did faint just as I said I would.  However, a great deal of that was the fact that I had to make these while I was casting the spell for them to work."

"Huh?"

"They're attuned to the initial spell I cast, so that any one of them will bring me back home in an emergency.  That's now an anchor point, for us."

"Not the safest place to go back to now, is it?"

"Well, it was supposed to be," she muttered darkly.  "I thought it would be, at the time.  How was I supposed to know that would happen?"

"Mum seemed to know, as soon as Ginny told her about what Professor Riddle said to you.  She started rushing everyone out of the house, and told me to protect you no matter what, and I did.  Didn't I?"

"Well, you tried," Hermione said, patting him on the arm and smiling at him.  "Though, I'm rather thankful they didn't start casting spells before we'd managed to escape."

"You and me both," Ron said, sitting down next to her.

"They got away then, right?"

"I don't know."  He frowned, resting his knees on his elbows with his hands clasped in front of him.  "I think so, but everything was too chaotic all at once to tell for sure."

Hermione nodded slowly.  It probably wasn't a good idea to use the pendant yet, then, because if they were on the run or hiding it might give away their location.  She'd have to wait until Ginny contacted her, first, just in case.

"So.  What do we do now?" Ron asked quietly.  "I know you had a plan and everything, but since neither of us knew I was coming with you..."

"I know," Hermione said with a soft smile.  "It's okay.  The first thing we do is we have to keep a little boy from getting killed."

"Really?"  Ron looked at her with wide eyes.  "But, won't that change everything in the future?"

"That's the idea," she said.  "But it's okay.  The person we're going to stop is a time traveler, too.  If you think about it, we'll just be righting a wrong that should never have been committed in the first place."

"Well, yeah, that makes sense."

She stood up and took a deep breath.  "We should go.  We've only got a few hours to get there.  It should be simple enough, too.  We just stop the person and go on to the next stop on the timeline."

Ron just nodded and stood up too.  "You're the boss.  You know what you're doing."

Hermione smiled and took his hand.  "Don't worry.  It will work out just fine."  She said it just as much to reassure herself as to reassure him.

He looked at their hands, surprised, but he didn't pull away at all.  He squeezed a little bit.  "Okay.  Let's go."


	13. Chapter 13

This statement is false.

 

## Chapter Thirteen

## The First Paradox

 

It was altogether too easy to stop the one who came to kill Albus Dumbledore.  Ron waved his arms around like a loon while Hermione deftly sent the person's wand flying with a quick _Expelliarmus_ spell.  The person who had been threatening the child with his wand had been hidden beneath a cloak with the cowl pulled down low over his face.  As soon as his wand left his hand, he dove for it again and then vanished.  Whoever it was had been quicker than Hermione expected, or he wouldn't have gotten away.

"Hurry home," Hermione instructed the child, and then she cast an invisibility spell to hide behind.  (First just over herself, but then she had to help Ron with his.  He never had been good at that particular one.)

They followed young Albus home, to make sure that no second attack was attempted before he got there.

For good or for ill, they'd changed their own future.

"Okay.  We did it.  Job well done.  You saved the little boy.  Now what?  Do we go home already?"

Hermione shook her head.  "That's just the beginning, sorry.  Now we get to meet the old man whose life we just saved."

"Oh, not him again," Ron groaned.

"Yes, him again!  He's the whole reason I started this.  Trust me, you'll like him."

"Hermione," he groaned again.

"Do you still have your egg with you?"

"Yes."  He gave up.

"Good.  Let's go."

They were wrenched through the vastness of time again, speeding swiftly to the future.  Ron was completely sure he didn't like traveling like this, but at the same time he didn't have much of a choice, now, unless he wanted to get stuck in the past.

When they arrived at the right time, Hermione smiled.  "Now we just have to Apparate to Hogsmeade and meet Dumbledore at the Three Broomsticks."

"Really?  Oh, well, that doesn't sound so bad, then."  Ron really liked it there, when they went on Hogsmeade weekends.  It wasn't entirely because Madam Rosmerta was easy on the eyes, though that helped a bit.

She gave him a questioning look.  "Why would--never mind.  I'll meet you there."

With that, she disappeared.  Ron sighed and shook his head, hopeful that he knew her well enough to know where she'd appear.  (Really, protocol and politeness dictated that you Apparate a block away, but which block would she pick?  North, South, East, West?  He just made a guess at random, since girls seemed random to him anyway.)  He ended up a few paces away from her and grinned.  "You're so predictable," he teased.

Hermione gave him a funny look and then shrugged.  "I'm just used to coming from this direction is all."

"Er.  Right.  Exactly why I picked it," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away.  He began walking while he hoped that she wouldn't notice the slight embarrassed blush.  "Can't keep the old man waiting, right?"

"Right," Hermione agreed with a sigh.  She hurried to join him and they walked from there in silence until he opened the door for her.

The room was immediately warm and welcoming, and they both felt comforted by the breath of comforting familiarity.  It was exactly like home, really, for both of them.  Hermione tugged Ron over to their usual table and sat down, grateful that it was empty.

Madam Rosmerta immediately bustled over, looking them over.  "Now, what are the two of you doing here, instead of up at the school where you belong?  You know I'll have to tell Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall."

They exchanged startled looks; both at the strange names and that she'd tell on them over Christmas vacation.

Except, this wasn't vacation.  It wasn't exactly snowing outside, or even chilly at all.  They were still dressed as they had been inside Ron's house.

"Well, we're, uh, that is, it's--"

"I am aware of their presence here already," an old man said as he walked in the door.  Ron watched him as he walked in, figuring that this must be Dumbledore.  The old man took off his hat as he walked over, ordering three butterbeers for them, and smiling at them as he sat down.  "Miss Granger.  Mr. Weasley.  I must say I am surprised that you're both here, but pleased.  You two have always been a good team."

"We have?" they both said simultaneously, in about the same tone of voice.

"Indeed," Dumbledore answered, a tone of sadness creeping into his voice.  "The two of you have helped Harry immeasurably, over the past few years.  I take it that things are different where--I mean when--the two of you are from?"

They both nodded, and Ron felt a chill.  Had they really just changed history that much?  "So, he really does live longer, with you around?"

"It would appear so," he said softly, the sadness lingering for a moment.  He then shook his head.  "Forgive me, I have been terribly rude.  You, of course, would not know who I am, other than as some delusion of your friend's and a child you weren't sure about saving."  He smiled at that, and Ron felt himself wanting to smile as well because of it.  There was just something about the old man.  "I am Albus Dumbledore, and we can dispense with all of the other silly titles appended to my name for this meeting.  What you need to know is that because you once saved my life, I grew up to become the headmaster at Hogwarts.  And, if it means much, your parents have said I am quite good at it, and I count them proudly among my friends."

It was exactly the right thing to make Ron take notice and stop doubting.  There were some professors that they were fond of, of course, but there were also those who his parents had an open dislike for.  They were careful about voicing it, but he'd still heard things about Professor Riddle that worried him from them.  So, if his parents from a world where things were different by just one person thought that that one person was worthwhile, he'd have to go with his instincts.  Ron's instincts told him that this was someone he could trust.

"Whoa," Ron said softly, not really feeling the need to vocalize all that.

Hermione shot him an 'I told you so' look, and then turned and smiled at Dumbledore.  "It's very nice to meet you at last."

"I am glad that you have made it, and not just for the obvious reason," Dumbledore said kindly.  He turned his attention entirely to Hermione.  "Did you manage to look into more incidents involving the names that I gave you?"

Hermione nodded, pulling out a scroll and handing it over.  "I've done everything I could to find out about them, but most of them are long since dead or discredited."  She glanced at Ron before continuing.  "The Weasleys, of course, were some of the few who were exempt from that, but that might be because of what happened to Mrs. Weasley's family just after she was married."

Ron watched Dumbledore scan the list for a minute before he managed to talk.  "You mean...what happened to my uncles, and my grandparents, might not--"

"Yes, and no," Dumbledore murmured, still looking over what Hermione had researched.  "In the time that I am familiar with, they lived a bit longer than what is listed here, but your uncles Fabian and Gideon died in the war against Voldemort and his followers."

The name made both Hermione and Ron shiver, but at the same time it was almost a comfort to hear someone say it aloud without fear.

"Sir, I think I know..."  Hermione hesitated, glancing around the room.  She then went on in hushed tones.  "I mean, I don't know if anyone knows who he is here or not, but before we left, we barely escaped because there were Death Eaters, and I think that maybe, well, _he_ may have been Professor Riddle."

Ron stared at her, more because she'd been so uncharacteristically hesitant than any sort of disbelief.  It really wouldn't surprise him, much.  "Riddle is creepy enough, now that you mention it."

" _Professor_ Riddle?"  It seemed to catch Dumbledore off guard for only a moment.  "Amazing what sorts of things happen, when I'm not around to prevent them."

Ron was about to ask what happened, when Hermione squeaked suddenly.  Ron and Dumbledore both looked at her in surprise while she scrambled to pull her pendant out from under her shirt.

"Sorry," she said with wide and excited eyes.  "It's Ginny.  They're okay.  They made it out okay, everyone did.  They're hiding, but they should be fine now."

Ron let out a long sigh of relief, all but collapsing onto the table.  He'd forgotten just how worried he'd been, until just now when he could finally let it all go.

Dumbledore stood.  "I would love to ask the two of you more, but now that you are in touch with your contact in your own time, you should attend to the task at hand, as quickly as possible.  I have only one request to make before you leave."  He slid the scroll back to Hermione, and motioned that they should join him outside.

They both also rose, and Dumbledore paid for all three of the butterbeers that they'd barely been aware of being served, or of drinking with all they'd talked about.  He ushered them outside, and smiled as if to himself.  "Just in time.  Harry, if you'll remove your cloak, please?"

Ron and Hermione gasped as someone removed an invisibility cloak, and their eyes only grew wider at who was revealed.

"What?  But...you two...weren't you just...?"  Harry turned around, looking back in the direction of Hogwarts.

"Since I cannot accompany the two of you on your journey, I ask you to take Harry with you."

All three of them stared at Dumbledore, and then all three tried to talk at once.

Dumbledore raised his hands.  "I am sure the three of you can sort this out, but, if you will forgive the pun, time is of the essence."

"Yes, of course," Hermione said.  "We've got a job to do."

Dumbledore smiled at all of them, and then looked at Harry.  "Did you manage to procure the item I asked you to fetch?"

"Yes, sir.  It was exactly where you said it would be."

"Then the three of you should be off."

Hermione handed Harry one of the eggs, obviously trying not to stare at him outright.  "You'll need this."

"Where are we going?"

Ron grinned.  "Not where.  When."


	14. Chapter 14

The art of misdirection is one of the oldest deceptions in the book.

No, I'm not sure which book that is.  It's simply the proverbial book that supposedly has recorded everything that ever was in history, such as the supposed oldest profession in the book and the proverbial first man who invented the wheel and the hypothetical man who first discovered fire.

No, I am not going to send Ron, Harry, and Hermione to look into any of these, or find the "book" or anything else.

Now shoo.  I've got writing to do.

 

## Chapter Fourteen

## Somewhere in the Mists of Time

 

They huddled together under the tree again the next day, Sunday, even though the weather was starting to take a turn for the worse.  They were all in their winter cloaks, and Remus had conjured a small fire that she kept in a glass jar to give a bit of warmth when they needed it.  He passed it around, and Lily was currently the one holding it to thaw out her numb fingers.

"We've been over it all," James was saying wearily.  "I still can't come up with anything."

They all nodded in agreement, starting to look a bit worried.

"It's impossible," Remus said slowly, "but it happened.  He couldn't have just left, so--"

"What about a Portkey?" Lily asked suddenly, straightening.  "That could do it, right?"

"No," Snape said immediately.  "He didn't disappear like that.  It wasn't a rushing away sort of thing, he seemed to fade for just a moment and then was gone."

Lily bit her bottom lip, thinking it over.  "That sounds more like an invisibility spell to me."

Sirius shook his head.  "It didn't sound right, and it didn't, well, smell right, for that.  Invisibility wouldn't be accompanied by a shift in the air the way this was, and I remember a distinct whooshing sound.  Not a pop, like Apparition, but the person who did this wasn't there anymore."

They all fell silent again.  It didn't make sense at all.  How could someone be there, and then suddenly not be there?  There were too many ways, and it seemed as if they'd discounted them all.

"What else is there?"

Lily passed the jar on to Snape, shaking her head.  "I keep thinking that we're missing something glaringly obvious, but when I try to think of it, the thought vanishes."

Snape nodded, wrapping his fingers eagerly around the jar.  "That's exactly how I feel.  The harder I chase the idea, the faster it runs away."  He scowled and muttered a curse under his breath.  "You don't suppose he obfuscated the answer someh--?"  He stopped himself with a shake of his head.

"If he had, it shouldn't affect me," Lily answered for him grimly.  "I wonder if anyone else has figured it out?"

"It doesn't matter if they did," Sirius said with a shake of his head.  "They wouldn't tell us.  They'd want to keep the secret, so we wouldn't go looking for trouble."

"Only because they're so used to you finding it," Snape said, glaring.

"Oh, and they'd tell someone who'd kept perfectly behaved?"

Everyone looked at Lily at the same time, with wondering looks.

"Wait.  What?"  Lily looked around the circle, quickly shaking her head.  "Don't look at me.  They'd wonder why I'd want to know suddenly, if I started asking around about something I'm not even supposed to know about."

Everyone's attention shifted to Snape, but the idea was too ridiculous to keep their attention on him.

"It wouldn't hurt for me to ask," Snape said, as he realized the attention had dropped.

It was almost comical how everyone had the same looks on their faces.  It was an interesting mix of doubt and surprise, which apparently offended Snape.

"I want to know what's going on at least as much as the rest of you," he reminded them.  "I was almost killed, you know."

"Oh, right, I'd almost forgotten," Sirius said, as he rolled his eyes.  "I have a hard time remembering if you don't tell me at least every five minutes."

"I could tattoo it on your forehead," Snape said humorlessly.

"But then I'd never see it, so I'd forget as soon as the pain was gone.  You'd better just keep telling me."

"Not as much as you preen in any reflective surface.  You'd see it every two minutes until you die, at least."

"I do not!" Sirius protested, scrambling to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at Snape.  He obviously felt that the statement needed to be backed up by looming over everyone.

The rest of the circle snickered at him, though Lily was at least polite enough to cover her mouth with the back of her hand while she did.

"Do I?"

Remus held off his snickering long enough to reply, "Sorry.  Snape's got you dead to rights, there."

They all laughed then, including Sirius who sat back down and gave Snape a slight shake of his head.  "You win--this time.  But I'll be back."

"Here I thought you always fancied yourself the good guy," Snape rolled his eyes; he was the only one in the group not showing signs of enjoying the open camaraderie of the rest of the group.

"Doesn't everyone?" he asked simply, holding his hands out for the jar of magical fire.

"No."  Snape actually looked confused by that.  "I mean, I don't think anyone sets out to be a bad guy, but I think most people are at least reasonable enough to realize there are no good guys or bad guys.  It is all a matter of perspective."

James shook his head.  "I want to be a good guy when I grow up, and I think that's why I'm trying to get all the craziness out now, while I can still enjoy it, you know?  I mean, I've always thought that way.  I wanted to grow up to be a knight in shining armor, and save the day, when I was little.  Rescue damsels in distress, and all that."

Remus nodded along with what James said.  "Me, too, though I always wanted to be more like Merlin, or Professor Dumbledore.  It'll never happen, and I know that now, but that's what I wanted as a kid.  To be a powerful wizard that everyone could look up to."

"You still could," Lily said immediately.

Snape sneered and turned away.

Remus shook his head at first, then smiled sheepishly and shrugged.  "Maybe.  We'll see."

"That's more like it," she said, smiling.  "And I'd be surprised if we don't all end up to be at least that great."

"I never cared much about good guys and bad guys," Sirius volunteered, not wanting to be left out in this.  "I just wanted to piss off my parents."

"How nice for you," Snape muttered.  "This isn't getting us any closer to solving our favorite mystery, however, so I'm going somewhere warmer.  It's colder than a--"

What it was colder than was left unfinished, however.  Snape had stood up, turning around to leave, and he walked into someone who hadn't been there a moment before.  This someone was accompanied by two other someones.

"Oh no!  No one was supposed to be here right now!" the girl Snape had run into said, almost falling over.

The group stared at the new trio in shock.  They'd just appeared, out of nowhere.

"Was it like that?" Lily whispered to James.

He nodded, but for some reason that didn't concern him at all.  He was staring at one of the boys as if he'd seen a ghost.  It was uncanny, really, but it was almost like looking into a mirror at a boy maybe a year younger than him, with a scar on his forehead and glasses with slightly different frames (as if that were somehow an inherited trait?  Come on, James.)  The most uncanny part, though, was that the other boy's eyes weren't the same shade of hazel, but were very large and bright green and very familiar to him though it took him quite longer than it should to place where he'd seen such beautiful eyes before.

Of course.  Sitting next to him, with long auburn hair.  He'd dreamed about those eyes for years now.  He looked at Lily for a moment, as if to confirm it, and then he couldn't contain it anymore.

"We're all idiots!  It was time travel all along!"

They all, even the newcomers, stared at him in complete confusion, but he knew he'd solved it.  The man who attacked Severus and killed Peter had to have been a time traveler.


	15. Chapter 15

It is a well-known fact that the portraits in the Hogwarts headmaster's office are missing four very prominent portraits.  Many headmasters have lamented, quietly, that they could not seek the wisdom of the founders of the school, at one point or another.  There has also always been a bit of curiosity about them, even as omniscient as some of the headmasters have seemed.

Of course, they had portraits back then.  As a matter of fact, Rowena Ravenclaw was the very proud owner of a portrait of Merlin himself, and that was the first portrait hung in the headmaster's office.  There have been so many headmasters over the years though, that it is difficult to sort through them and figure out which one goes where in the history of all things.  Some are old and senile and don't want to answer impertinent questions put forth about their age or when they were headmaster or headmistress.  It's no one's business but their own if this magical advance or another had actually been achieved when they were alive, thank you very much, and it wouldn't affect their ability to give someone good advice.

There are a few obviously older portraits though that stand alone.  The frames are frequently empty, or the occupants sleeping.  The colors are faded despite many spells to keep them clear, and they are in bad need or restoration, but the portraits never complain.  They figure they have earned the right to be rather left alone and do not wish to hear about this controversy or that.  It's all the same to them as when they started, thank you very much.

There are no names or dates upon those frames, and no one has ever managed to get them to admit any.

Foolish headmasters have chosen to ignore them entirely and wonder why they are still even around.  A few wiser ones have wondered, though.  If they ever learned anything more than this, however, they have kept the secrets they've found to themselves.

 

## Chapter Fifteen

## Blood, Pure or True

 

Harry didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until he gasped along with everyone else at James's (my dad's...that's my dad...oh my God I can't believe it he looks just like in Snape's memory but this isn't a memory this is real and that's my dad and that's my mom right next to him and they're just about my age and why did Dumbledore send me here without warning me or saying anything and what is going on and why are Ron and Hermione so different and oh my God I'm staring at my own dad!) exclamation.  He was feeling a little lightheaded, and leaned against the tree they stood under for support.

Hermione, in the mean time, looked as if she were going to fly into a panic, flustered and helping a young Severus Snape up to his feet.  Didn't she even recognize him?  Well, of course, this was Hermione.  She'd probably apologize if she knocked Voldemort over accidentally.  She'd try to kill him after he was on his own two feet, probably, but she was too polite and respectful for her own good sometimes.

"Sorry we didn't have time to fill you in," Ron murmured to him.  "We're just as surprised to see you as you are to see us, I'm sure."

Harry nodded a little, noting for the first time, in the full light, that there was something different about his best friends.  Their clothes were all wrong, for one.  They looked a little older than they should be, for another.

"You'll tell me about it later?" he whispered to Ron.

Ron nodded quickly.  "I'd have told you already, but I don't think Hermione expected anyone to be here right now."

The others were collecting around Hermione and James, who had stood up quickly to ask her if he was right.  Hermione, for her part, was trying to pretend that there was nothing unusual about their appearance, and that they were all just home-schooled students who were given permission from the headmaster to do research there.

"Impossible," Snape glared, wiping off the back of his cloak.

"But, Professor Sprout's always allowed--" Hermione clamped her hands over her mouth as she noted the looks of surprise she'd received.

"What's Professor Sprout got to do with anything?" Harry whispered to Ron.

It was Ron's turn to look surprised.  "She's headmistress.  Isn't she?"

"Not even close," Harry said, brows knitting together.  "What's going on here?"

Ron had a look of dawning realization.  "Oh, right, the old guy must be--he even said he was.  Sorry, I'm just not used to--"

"Are you Ron, or aren't you?"  Harry would have seriously doubted his sanity, if Dumbledore hadn't warned him to not be too hasty to jump to conclusions about what would happen tonight, and warned him that it may even seem insane, at first.

"'Course I am," Ron said.  "Probably not quite the same as the one you know, though.  You see--"

He was interrupted by a foot landing on his toes.  Hermione was glaring at him, since he'd ignored the first glare and the elbow in his ribs.  "Ron!  We don't have time for that now.  We've got to ask everyone here for their help."

"There's less painful ways of getting my attention, you know!"

She gave him a look that Harry was all too familiar with.  It was her "stop being an idiot" look.  She shot a look like that at Ron at least once a day, as far as Harry had been able to tell, unless they weren't talking to each other at the time for some reason or another.  She tended to avoid unnecessary non-verbal communication with him at those times, as well.  At least she did when he was looking.  If he ever grew eyes on the back of his head, he'd probably be quite surprised at such times.

"We should all sit back down and talk about this," someone said.  Harry looked over and realized it was Sirius Black, his godfather who had been dead nearly a year now, only he was now Harry's age, like the others.

"That's an excellent idea," Hermione replied promptly.

They all sat, Harry sitting last and very reluctant to sit with everyone else.  He just felt so awkward being here at all.  To top it off, he couldn't help but notice that something was very wrong.  What was Snape doing, talking to everyone here, and where was Peter Pettigrew?  Where was the traitor, Wormtail, in this group?  Harry made sure he sat between Ron and Remus Lupin, where he felt comfortable.  (He wanted to sit between Ron and Hermione, but they'd ended up sitting a little too close to each other, and for some reason they seemed a little unnerved by Harry sitting so close.)

Hermione spoke up again, once everyone was settled.  "Now, what's this about time travel?" she asked, looking at James with a very serious expression.

James, for his part, didn't miss a beat.  "Professor Dumbledore is entirely too careful about who enters the grounds to let three random people in to peruse the library, for one.  And the only Professor Sprout we've got here is entirely too young to be headmistress, if we're meaning the same person.  Finally," James paused, as he looked directly into Harry's eyes with something like a smug grin, "let's just say it's a sudden hunch, on my part."

It seemed like everyone else in the circle looked at Harry as well, and then did a double take.  Lily's was the most pronounced as she looked at Harry, started to stand, looked intently at James, looked at Harry again, and then immediately ran over to him and gave him a great hug that squeezed the breath out of him.  Harry didn't exactly complain, though, because he was holding onto her just as tightly, trying hard not to cry.  He felt an immediate connection with her that he'd never felt with anyone before, and a cool feeling of peace and happiness centered upon his scar.  It was a bizarre contrast to the burning pain he felt from the effects of Voldemort's rage and hate, but he realized that it made sense that if there would be the one, there would follow the other.

"Who are you?" she whispered.  "And why are you risking so much paradox in coming here?"

"I--it's just, I'm just doing what Professor Dumbledore told me, that's all," he said, flustered.

Lily sat back, squeezing between him and Ron.  "Well, why would he risk paradox like that, then?"

Harry was happy to make room, but Ron looked a little awkward about it, as he almost ended up in Hermione's lap.  Everyone took a moment to shift over, leaving Snape sitting between James and Sirius, and everyone in the circle looking just a bit more awkward than they'd been a few minutes before.

Hermione sighed.  "The problem is that the paradox is already upon us."

"So, Peter should not have died," said Lupin quietly, putting it all together first.

"Wait, what?"  Harry stared at him.  "Wormtail...dead?"

Ron and Hermione looked a little lost, shrugging, but the others in the circle had much more interesting reactions.  James, Sirius, and Lupin all looked startled, but a three-way exchange of looks later they all nodded, as if this offered some final proof of the time-travel theory.  Snape paled a little, and Harry didn't care.  He didn't want anything to do with Snape right now anyway.

Lily looked confused, though, and frowned.  "That was his nickname?  It doesn't sound all that nice, if you ask me."

"There were...reasons," James explained, hesitating as he looked over Ron and Hermione.

Harry wanted to shout that it was okay to trust the two of them, but the words froze in his throat.  These two weren't the same Ron and Hermione he'd known for years, somehow.  He was positive of it, now, and he wasn't sure at all how much he should trust them yet.

Snape is the one who cut through the awkward atmosphere.  "Is it true that I'm the one who should have died, then?  Or was the attack in general something that should never have occurred?"

Hermione looked flustered.  "I don't know.  I'm not sure who, exactly, any of you are, except that you," she pointed to James, "look enough like Harry that you--"

"Must be his dad, huh?  Don't tell me it took you that long to figure it out?"  James was grinning in proud triumph.

Hermione nodded and then looked at Lily.  "And, well, you must be his mother, and I'm sorry if this is catching everyone by surprise.  I didn't mean for this all to happen like this."

Lily just smiled.  "There's no need to worry.  I mean, I am taken by surprised a bit, but the thought isn't as repugnant as it used to be."  She blushed a little, looking over at James.

"Excellent!" James rubbed his hands together in glee.  "Does that make you my girl?"

"Well, I'd certainly hope so, before..." Lily trailed off, indicating Harry with a tilt of her head.

Everyone in the circle laughed except for Harry and Snape.  Harry was a bit pensive, since the entire situation felt awkward and unnatural to him.  Snape, on the other hand, just looked impatient.  Loath as Harry was to help Snape out for any reason, out of principle for all the bad blood between them, he wanted to be sure to say something.

"You're not meant to have died, as far as I know," Harry said, just loud enough to be heard.  "At least, not in the timeline I'm from, if that means anything.  Then again, Peter Pettigrew isn't dead then, either."

Harry stared down at the ground as soon as he'd said that.  He'd tried not to sound bitter about either of those, when three people who sat here with him were dead, by his timeline at least.  The three people from this time who Harry least wanted to be dead, in fact.

Lily put a hand on his back and gave him a small smile.  She obviously didn't know what was wrong, but it didn't seem to matter to her.  She just offered her sympathy, as only a mother could, even if the idea couldn't have really settled in yet for her.

Hermione held up a hand, as if she were in class.  "Excuse me, but perhaps we should all go 'round the circle and introduce ourselves?  I have a feeling that we're all from such different pasts that even if we think we know each other, it might be a good idea to say something anyway, just in case."

Everyone agreed, and everyone waited for someone else to speak up first.


	16. Chapter 16

People go on and on about fate and destiny and karma at great lengths.  It's hard to think of a world where random events really do just happen.  It's hard to accept that in this world you really are responsible for your own actions, and those actions truly do affect everything and everyone around you.

Once you're embroiled in the vicissitudes of time travel, you can't help but see it and know it and accept it, or you could very well destroy the entire universe.

 

## Chapter Sixteen

## Infinite Possibilities

 

Severus looked around the group, amazed that Black or Potter...that is, James Potter, hadn't jumped up at the opportunity.  They actually looked like they were itching to, but they were also looking at Harry with almost hungry looks in their eyes.  It looked like everyone in the circle wanted to know more about the impossible offspring of Lily and James, and Severus had to admit that he was more than a bit curious as well.

"I think Harry should go first," the girl he'd run into, who'd introduced herself as Hermione as she was helping him up, suddenly blurted out.  "Since he seems to know everyone here, but the rest of us are a bit fuzzy."

Severus looked at him closely, watching him think about that and come to a conclusion at last.

"Okay.  I will.  First, though, I think we should go somewhere warmer."

"And where do you propose we do that?" asked Severus with a bit of a sneer.  "If the three of you were seen by any of the professors, they'd know immediately that you didn't belong, and we'd all be in trouble.  Especially you, Harry.  It would be rather difficult to explain a replica of James wandering around with bright green eyes and some stupid scar on his face."

"Don't worry about me," Harry said coldly.  "I've got the means to go unnoticed, and I know a room that would be perfect for what we need right now."

"I'm not worried about you," said Severus.  "It's not as if you'll get a month of detentions, like the rest of us."

"It would be a bit risky," Hermione pointed out reluctantly.  "We can't afford to be spotted by everyone and cause an incident.  Much as I'd love some warmth, we simply cannot risk it."

Harry stood up.  "I know how to get there without being caught."  He pulled out a piece of old parchment and said something, quietly, touching it with the tip of his wand.  Severus, Lily, Ron, and Hermione leaned closer, trying to see what he was doing with it.

"What is it?" asked Severus, leaning closer.

"Just a map," said Harry.  "And it looks like it won't be entirely impossible to get up to the seventh floor without being seen.  It looks like even Peeves is distracted with something."

"Some map," Severus drawled, looking closer.  Tiny dots wandered around, with little names attached, but Harry folded it up and put it in a pocket before he could get a good look.

"I've always found it rather handy," Harry said as he stood up.  "Let's hurry.  I'll feel much safer once we reach the room."

Everyone else stood, also.  Lupin, Black, and Potter were hanging back, whispering urgently about something, but Severus decided to ignore them in light of this new mystery to figure out.  He kept up with Harry, opening his mouth to ask about the map a couple of times, but he kept hesitating over just what he wanted to ask.  That, and Harry kept glaring at him as if they were hated enemies.  Just when he thought he'd get some relief from that sort of thing and had relaxed a little, along came these newcomers, and it looked like the break from reality would be over, just as he thought would end up happening from the start.

After a few false starts and many looks at Harry's map, they eventually wound up on the seventh floor, where Harry led them all in circles.

Severus, of course, was hardly impressed.  "We've been past this tapestry at least three times," he said, pointing a few paces ahead.

Harry just nodded and walked directly to a door that Severus hadn't noticed there before.  "Hurry up, before we're all caught."

Everyone looked amazed as they filed into the room.  There were chairs and couches and food and an assortment of drinks and a nice fireplace with a fire already going.  Harry closed the door, and everyone tried to ask him at once what this place was and how he knew where to find it and where all the food and everything had come from.

"I think I'll keep that my little secret, for now," he said, looking rather proud.

"Any lingering doubts that he's James's son can now be laid to rest," Severus announced with something between a grin and a grimace.

"Don't break your face there, trying to smile," Black said in mock concern and alarm.

"Oh, don't worry, I don't think that would ever happen," sneered Severus in return.

"That sounds like a challenge to me," said James, eyes sparkling with mischief.  "Don't you think so, Moony?"

Lupin grinned widely.  "That's what it sounded like to me, Prongs.  What do you think, Padfoot?"

"Are you kidding?" said Black, shaking his head.  "If we broke him, who'd clean up the mess?"

"I'm not fragile," Snape said coolly, but inwardly he had to admit to being slightly amused.  To cover any hints of it that may have reached the surface, he walked over to the table and looked over the food selection.  He had to admit, it looked rather impressive.  It all smelled appetizing, also.  He selected a few finger foods and a goblet of pumpkin juice, and sat down in a chair that was a bit apart from everyone else.

Everyone else did the same, sitting wherever they felt comfortable.  The only one who didn't pick out a snack or something to drink was Harry.  He stood and waited, and once everyone was settled he smiled a little nervously.  "Now that we're all comfortable and safe from detection, I suppose it is time to begin introductions."

There was a chorus of consent from everyone in the room.

"Well, I'm Harry Potter.  And...in some way or another, I do know everyone here.  The strangest thing to me, about all of this, is that Hermione is the one who told me, when we were third year students, the dangers of time travel and how strictly regulated it is.  So, it's very strange that you're the one who seems to have started this all."  He turned to look directly at her, questioningly.

"I have my reasons," Hermione murmured softly.  "I'm just not sure if I can explain them, exactly."

"I can," Ron said.  "It's easy, really.  She had a dream about this old guy, went back in time and saved his life, and now he's real."

"Ron!" Hermione protested.  "You're oversimplifying the matter.  For one thing, we saved his life from another time traveler."

"How d'you know the other time traveler wasn't supposed to kill the old man, then?"

"If that's so, then why wouldn't we be supposed to go back and save him?"

"Oh, I don't know, because we're only students and not Ministry wizards who are trained to do stuff like that?  Oh, I'm not complaining," said Ron, backpedaling a little.  "I think it was worth it since that Dumbledore guy seems like he'd do a better job of running Hogwarts than Professor Sprout, but you know we're hardly qualified do be just doing this stuff on our own."

Everyone looked at the pair in horror or shock.  Hogwarts without Dumbledore?  It just didn't seem right.

"You may not have any faith in me and my judgment, Ronald Weasley, but Professor Riddle was certainly impressed!"

"Impressed enough to send a group of Death Eaters after us, sure."

"Excuse me," interrupted Harry with a horrified look on his face.  "Did you say 'Professor Riddle'?"

"Yes, that's right," Hermione said, frowning slightly.  "You're the second person to react like that, now."

"Do you mean to say that, where or when or whatever you're from, Tom Riddle is actually a professor?"

At the same time, Ron was murmuring, "Dumbledore seemed a little less shocked, and a little more sad about the idea.  Harry's got this whole, 'It's the end of the world' sort of panic in his eyes, see?"

"Ron, shut up," Hermione said, looking a little flustered.

"What's the matter, Harry?" Lily asked, leaning forward and looking concerned.  "Who is Tom Riddle?"

"That's the name Voldemort was given, when he was born."

Severus twitched.  "First of all, how would you know?  Second of all, don't speak of him by name!"

Harry rolled his eyes.  "I know because I'm the one who killed him the first time around, and I'm going to do it again and make sure I've finished the job this time."  By the end of his statement, Harry looked more resolved and determined than anyone Severus had ever seen.  "And second of all," he went on with steel in his voice, "I will call him Lord Moldy Butt, if I want to.  Voldemort is scary enough in person, without adding to it by being afraid of his name, also.  Besides, I don't care if I give him a conniption fit over his name or not, at this point."

"Looks like we've raised him with the right defiance against dangerous megalomaniacs," James said, nudging Lily in the side.

"He clearly gets it from your side of the family," said Lily with a grin.

Severus was probably the only one who noticed the sad look on Harry's face.  There was so much loneliness in his expression that Severus couldn't stop the stab of empathy he felt.  He didn't understand it, and it made him uncomfortable, but he couldn't ignore it.

A moment later the look had vanished as if it had never been there.  "We've drifted from the point," Harry said, sitting down at last.  "We're supposed to get to know each other at least enough to know each others names, and then we're going to ask Hermione what this is all about and why we're all here at the same time and why we've got to work together to change history or whatever it is she's got in mind."

"And nicknames," added Black.  "We've all got to have nicknames.  Like a spy novel, or something."

"I'd rather not," Harry started to protest weakly.

"That would be wicked!" Ron broke in enthusiastically.  "Do we get to pick our own?"

"If you were planning on 'His High Holy Studmuffin the Second' you're out of luck," Black replied with a grin.  "And, since that's the only nickname I can picture someone like you giving yourself, you're out of luck, and we'll come up with something for you."

"Oh God," Severus groaned quietly.  "If any of you think you'll stick me with a nickname, I'll walk out right now, find the nearest toilet, and be sick in it, in your honor."

Ron laughed.  "Go on, it'll be fun!  Don't you like spy stories?  You don't look like the Quidditch type, so I thought you'd love something like--"

"No.  I don't," said Severus in a firm voice.  "I don't enjoy any of those sorts of things, and now's not the time for any of it."

"You need to conjure yourself a sense of humor, badly."

"I've got one he can borrow," James interjected.  "Well loved, well worn, but it's got a few years left in it."

Everyone in the room laughed, except for Severus and Harry.  Severus was annoyed, but he might have laughed if the joke hadn't been at his expense.  He was slowly starting to warm to these people.  It was a frightening thought.  To keep himself from giving in to the disgusting abundance of levity in the room, he watched Harry Potter, and he wondered why the other boy also didn't join in with the frivolity.

"Guys, please, can we get back to the matter at hand," Harry said in a quiet voice, but it cut through the laughter and focused everyone at once.  "Something tells me we've got a lot to talk about, before we can get anything done."

There was a chorus of "sorry" from nearly everyone, and Severus wondered how he did it.  Harry hadn't needed to shout or even raise his voice to get everyone's attention and get them to calm down and do what he said.

"I'll go next," Lupin said kindly.  "That is, if you're done, Harry."

"I can't really think of anything else to say, thank you," said Harry.

Everyone settled back to listen to what Lupin had to say about himself.


	17. Chapter 17

In the Most Honorable House of Black, there was no room for those who upset the old ways.  Free thinkers and other wastes of space were frowned upon.  Outright rebels and Muggle-lovers had their names removed from the records entirely.  Some took it as a given that anyone with the last name of "Black" must have more than a passing familiarity with the Dark Arts.  Why else would they be named "Black" after all?

To every generation, though, there was a rebel.  Darkness is the absence of light, after all, and you couldn't have one without the other to showcase it.  Someone always questioned things, and came up with a different answer in the end.  There was more to life than power, and being respected by others who would gain power by any means necessary.

Perhaps, if the Most Honorable House of Black had kept a few of those radical and dangerous individuals, it would not have died out quietly in the night with one horrible misstep....

 

## Chapter Seventeen

## Honesty and Trust

 

"I am Remus Lupin, and before I go on, I'd like to ask something.  Can I trust the three of you?  Implicitly, and totally.  If I can't, I don't think I should be involved in whatever plan you have."

"You're not thinking of telling them, are you?" Sirius murmured.

"If there's a chance we'll be time traveling, it could be important," Remus murmured back.

"I already know," said Harry, standing up to get himself something from the snack table.  "You told me a few years ago."  He paused, and then he turned and smiled a bit.  "And...I do trust you.  With my life."

"Thank you," Remus said, relaxing a bit.  "Can I trust you two with my darkest secret?"

James leaned over and covered Lily's ears.  "So, you're not telling her?  I'll just take her aside and distract her a bit, then."  He grinned and winked.

Lily, for her part, elbowed James in the ribs.  "Stop it.  I could always step outside."

"No!" Remus said quickly.  "I've meant to tell you, anyway, now that we're all in this together.  It's just a little sooner than I'd expected to have to, is all."

Hermione spoke up quickly.  "I promise," she said.  "I won't tell whatever it is.  We need your help, all of you.  And we're all going to have to trust each other a great deal."

"In that case," Snape said, rising from his chair.

"Sit down," said James, "Or I'll sit down on your lap to make sure you stay there."

"Don't even think it, Potter," Snape said darkly, standing in front of his chair with his arms crossed.

"I'd rather have an excuse to sit on Lily's lap, if I wouldn't crush her, but you seem less fragile and I'll take what I can get."

Lily laughed and shifted to sit on James's lap.  "There.  Now you're both saved from the dilemma!"

James looked pleasantly surprised and slid an arm around her waist.  "In that case, I won't complain.  Do what you'd like, Snape.  Run away if it makes you feel better." 

His eyes were glued on Lily, so he missed the murderous look that Snape shot him before he sat down.

Remus cleared his throat.

"Oh, right," Ron added quickly.  "I promise I won't say a word about whatever it is.  I won't say anything about anything anybody says in here, if it's important.  Not that anyone would believe me about anything that's happened to me in the last day."

"I promise, also," Lily said, relaxing very slowly against James's chest.

Even with that much assurance, it was hard for Remus to talk.  "This isn't easy, but trust has to begin somewhere, and it would seem that most of the people here already know.  Some times would be more dangerous for me to time travel to, you see, because it would be rather dangerous for me to--I just said dangerous twice, didn't I?  Well.  Sorry.  I seem to be babbling.  It's just rather difficult to say, and I'd really rather not, but you need to know, just in case."

Snape made strangling motions with his hands.  "Just bloody say it already!"

"Oh, I'd like to see how you'd do, if it were you," Remus said, just shy of a glare.

"So would I," Sirius chimed in.  "Bite him, Moony, so we can find out."

"Not funny," Remus said, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Sure it is," Sirius said.  "I'm laughing."

"You're impossible."

"Merely improbably," he quipped.

"If you don't want to tell us, it's okay," Hermione interjected quickly, voice raised.  "I'm sure that whatever it is can't be--"

"Merlin's bearded crotch rot!  Just say it!"

"Don't be crude, Severus," Lily said coldly.  "There are ladies present."

"You're right," he conceded uncharacteristically.  "My apologies, Potter, Black, Lupin..."

Harry was looking a little bug-eyed at what appeared to actually be friendly ribbing, but everyone else in the room either laughed or at least snickered.

"You realize we'll make you pay for that," Sirius said, still laughing.

"Yes, well, it can't get any worse, so I've got nothing to fear."

"I'm a werewolf!" Remus finally blurted out over the din.

Of course everyone froze, for various reasons.  James and Sirius were surprised that he'd said it so loud like that.  Snape was just being his usual, sullen self.  Harry stood there, waiting for the rest.  Lily, Hermione, and Ron were all completely shocked.

"So," he added lamely, "going anywhere on the full moon is completely out."

"Yes, I'm sure," Hermione said, wide eyed with surprise.

The room exploded with sound as everyone began talking at once.  It started with Ron about to announce, loudly, his doubts about this new development, and nearly the rest of the room trying to reassure him and possibly Hermione and Lily if they needed it as well.  It was pure chaos for a few minutes, but it eventually died down with Harry reassuring Ron (again) that this was okay, Remus would be good to have along, and they'd just avoid the full moon whenever they could.

"If one catches us by surprise, we'll keep him covered," Sirius assured also, full of his usual confidence.

"And how do you propose to do that?" drawled Snape.

"Now, that's our little secret," Sirius said.  He introduced himself next, formally, and they continued on around the circle until everyone had been introduced (with many asides, which seemed unavoidable with this group) except Snape.

Everyone looked at him in silence for a minute.

"Ah, what can we say about Severus Snape?" James quipped.

"Aside from shoving him in a shower and washing his hair?" asked Sirius.  "Maybe inject him with a personality that doesn't range from brooding to surly and back again?"

"I thought those were my more charming traits," said Snape, rolling his eyes.

"Your sense of humor is either improving," said James, "or we've been missing out all this time."

"It's not my fault if you've been too blind to notice I'm a human being, too."

"Maybe they would have, if you'd act like a human being," Harry muttered.

Everyone stared at him for a minute, before James spoke slowly.  "What do you mean, Harry?"  There was a guilty look on James's face, for some reason.

Harry frowned a little and stared down at the floor, his expression even more sullen than what Snape himself usually wore.  "It's nothing," he muttered.

Since James was still pinned down by Lily, Sirius was the one who walked over and sat down on the arm of Harry's chair.  "Tell your uncle Sirius what's wrong, Harry.  You're keeping something dark from us, and it's eating at you.  Is it something we won't want to hear?  Is that it?"

Harry remained silent.

"You were surprised that Peter was gone," Sirius went on, with only a hint of the fresh pain that saying those words brought forth.  "So, that means that in your time, he isn't.  Right?"

Harry nodded.

"And now you're like some ghost of Christmas future, come to show us what would have happened if we'd kept on our former path, right?  And in that future, somehow you've gotten to know Snape, and he's been a total bastard to you for what we put him through in school?"  Sirius looked up, pinning Snape with a mild glare.  "Who knew you'd grow up to be so petty?  Shame on you."

"Oh, please," Snape said, shifting uncomfortably.  "I'd never do something like that."

Harry finally spoke up.  "In my time, he's a professor at Hogwarts.  What you've said is pretty accurate.  His life's ambition has been to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, but..." Harry hesitated for a minute, and then a bit of a smug look graced his face.  "But, Professor Dumbledore didn't trust him with the position, because Snape had once been a Death Eater.  And I know it."

"Oh, I'm sure I've come to despise you on your own merits, too," Snape said with a superior smirk.  "And before you start putting yourself above me, maybe you should think about how nice you've been since you've arrived here."

"I'm not the one with a history as a Death Eater," Harry glared.

"I'm not, either.  Not yet, at least."

Remus couldn't keep quiet any longer.  "Not ever, if we can help it," he added, and was gratified to see James and Sirius both nod solemnly at his words.

Snape frowned.  "What if you can't?"

"We'll take your revenge toy away and send you to bed without supper?" Sirius teased.

"Very funny."

"It's possible, though," said Harry slowly, frowning a little.  "Where I'm from, Peter is still alive, and you're, well, rather friendless from what I've seen.  I mean, there's Dumbledore.  He keeps standing up for you no matter how cruel, unfair, and power-hungry you act.  And, I suppose Lucius Malfoy is slightly on your side, even though he's currently in Azkaban.  I'm sure there's others who enjoy the idea of a complete bastard teaching potions to their children, if they're in Slytherin and you don't run around arbitrarily deducting points from them to make you feel a bit better about your own sad and pathetic little life."

"Yes.  I can see why I'll hate you very much in another fifteen or twenty years," Snape said impatiently.  "You've probably been itching to say something like that to me at a time when I'm not your professor, and cannot take points from your house.  Let me guess, you're in Gryffindor, too?"

"We all are except you, Snape."  Harry turned to Hermione.  "Are you positive we need his help?"

Hermione sighed exasperatedly.  "Yes.  We need his help.  I don't know what he's going to do to you in the future, Harry, but if it's possible to set it aside for a bit, I'd really appreciate it.  If it's not, well, as far as I can tell we need his help more than we need yours.  Where Ron and I are from, you've been dead for years, and it doesn't look like it took time travel to accomplish that."

"That's your criteria?" Harry looked at her as if she were either insane or...well, no, that was it.  Insane.

"I couldn't exactly research your own timeline.  Dumbledore just asked us to take you along in his stead."

"Were we even ever friends, in your own time?" Harry asked incredulously.

"No," she replied softly.  "I barely knew you before you, and your whole family, were killed."

"Oh," Harry said simply.  For some reason, he didn't look nearly as bothered by this as everyone else in the room thought he should be by that news.

"We wouldn't let that happen," Lily said suddenly, with burning determination in her eyes.  "I don't care who we'd have to stand up against."

"I know," whispered Harry, sitting back with a rather blank expression that left people even more bewildered by his reactions.


	18. Chapter 18

We all know by now that Sirius Black or Remus Lupin would rather have died than to give James Potter and his family over to the non-existent mercy of Voldemort.  What if, what if, what if?

What would you have done if you were Peter Pettigrew?  How many people are actually true heroes, and how many people just wish they could be while circumstance pushes them around, further and further away from the ideals they once had as children.  When black and white aren't as striking a contrast as Dumbledore and Voldemort, how far do most men bend?

"I have nothing to say to you," Peter told Regulus Black, with a bit of a superior sneer.  He had the best and brightest and most virtuous friends, after all.  What did Regulus have?  The Blacks, who were stupid enough to cast Sirius out, and a slew of the darkest and most disreputable people Peter had ever had the displeasure to meet.

"Of course you don't," Regulus replied as he sat down at the bar next to him.  "I just wanted to offer up a few congratulations, though, is all.  If you'll pass them on to my brother, that is."

"You can tell him yourself," Peter said, twitching a little.  "Or are you too good for him these days?"

"Oh, on the contrary.  He's too good for his poor, deluded baby brother.  That, and Mother would skin me alive."  It was a wry grin that he offered to Peter, and a lot warmer than the other was expecting.

"Yes, well, be that as it may," Peter said, squeaking a little on the 'yes'.  "You'd probably face just the same from associating with me, you know."

Regulus nodded, starting to turn away, and then he turned back to Peter and smiled winningly, looking much like his older brother when he did.  "You'll pass it along, though?  About being best man for Lily and James, I mean.  Quite the status play.  Impressive.  Even Mother had to grudgingly admit that much.  Worthy of a Black, if she weren't Muggle born.  Well, maybe even then, seeing as how she's so well respected among most of the wizarding community, right?"

"I suppose so," Peter said, expression darkening just a bit in envy.  His hero worship of those two was beginning to wear thin, now that they were out of Hogwarts and merely being their friend wasn't good for much more than, well, being their friend.  In fact, he was starting to feel the depression that many men have, when constantly compared to others who are consistently better in everyone's eyes.  Sidekick syndrome, or something like that.

"Yes.  I've heard that it was the place to be seen for the season.  Even you were lucky to get in, even being their long time friend and all."

Peter just nodded, then curtly turned and ordered another drink, his mood darkening.

"What's wrong?  Did something happen at the wedding?"  Regulus made a show of paying for Peter's drink, and another one on top of it, leaning forward solicitously.

"Can I confide in you?  I mean, if I say something, can I count on you not to repeat it?"  Peter twitched a little, but his eyes were dark and he just had to get some of this out before he burst.  And, really, it was almost like talking to Sirius after all.  Brother of a good friend, without having all of the emotional baggage of talking to Sirius directly.  They both had about the same vibe, and Peter needed to let it all out.

"Of course you can," Regulus said smoothly, resting a hand on Peter's arm, giving him an ear when he sorely needed it, and nudging him a little more and more into his confidence as the night wore on.

The Dark Side had their foot in the door, at last.

 

 

## Chapter Eighteen

## Your Job, Should You Accept

 

While everyone had been introducing themselves, and bantering quite a bit on the side, Hermione had been paying close attention and measuring every personality in the room.  Severus Snape and Harry Potter were so serious it was painful to watch, while James Potter and Sirius Black reminded her more of Ron's older brothers Fred and George.  Remus Lupin and Lily Evans seemed rather balanced and reasonable, though they played along with the silly antics of James and Sirius more easily than Hermione would.  She knew Ron wouldn't have any problems fitting in with such a group, but she wasn't sure if she, herself, would fit in.

When it came down to it though, Hermione didn't really have to fit in.  She had to persuade them all to help her, and that was the extent of it.  It was everyone else who would have to get along, some way or another.  She wasn't entirely sure how to handle that, though.  Some of them seemed like they would rather let the universe collapse in on itself if it meant they wouldn't have to work with someone else in the group.  Others of them would never get anything accomplished, because they'd be too distracted with playing around, she thought.

On top of it, she realized her other great mistake in trying to get the entire group to work together on the project.  It hadn't quite hit her, how large a group eight people were, in trying to get them from one place to another, until they'd tried getting up to this room.  Now it seemed impossibly unruly, and completely impossible when it came to stealth.

"So, what are we all doing?" James finally said, looking at Ron and Hermione.  "Aside from having time travelers fall in our laps, we don't have much information to go on."

It was the perfect opening, and everyone in the room (including Ron) looked at Hermione expectantly.  The problem was, Hermione wasn't sure where to begin, now that she was here.

Well, being blunt couldn't hurt, in this case.  "I need everyone here to help me to save the universe."

She was met with gawks and stares, and thought that perhaps, yes, that had been a little too blunt.  She couldn't take it back now, of course, but it was a place to start from.

"It's not enough to save the world from Voldemort, but now I have to save the entire universe as well?" Harry looked at her with a strange expression, as if he were trying to fight laughter and hysterical screaming at the same time.

"Think of it this way, Harry," Sirius began in a soothing tone.  "You can't very well save the world, if there's no universe to stick the world in, right?"

"Yeah.  Thanks.  I hadn't thought of that," Harry deadpanned.  The neutral expression lasted a full three seconds before his mouth betrayed him by turning up at the corner.

"He gets his sense of humor from your side," James said, tickling Lily in the ribs.

She gasped and giggled.  "Stop that!"

"Now, now," Sirius chided with a snicker.  "Not in front of the children."

"We're as old as you are," Ron protested indignantly.

Hermione stood, walking over to the snack table so she wouldn't start pacing.  At this rate, they'd make their first jump in time somewhere about next year, and all of her careful planning would be for nothing.  She tuned the rest of it all out, just standing at the table for a minute until she gained a little control over her exasperated state.

"Can we get back to the issue at hand?" she finally said, turning around with a smile.  "I really need everyone's help."

"Sorry, Hermione," Harry said, contrite.  A few others echoed the sentiment, and then everyone waited expectantly.

She nodded and took a deep breath.  "The problem is, recent history is pockmarked with alterations.  Murders and accidents that cannot be explained are the first clues to the puzzle, but by themselves they are still not conclusive.  I was doing a paper on time travel, though, and a disturbing trend began to show.  With many of these incidents, there is evidence recorded in the Ministry that someone in that time and space abused some sort of time travel device or spell to change things.

"Each of us are from divergent paths of future and history which have been altered in this way, though from what I can tell Harry's is the purest of them.  We've got to set things right, though, and as quickly as we can.  It seems as though the very fabric of the universe is becoming...unraveled."

"That can't be good," James murmured, holding Lily closer unconsciously.

"Unraveled, how?" Snape challenged.  "And why are you doing this, with a bunch of students from across time, instead of someone from the Department of Mysteries?  They'd be far more qualified."

"I know," said Hermione, frowning.  "It didn't make sense to me, at first.  The problem is that in my time, the one who is behind a great deal of the contamination is also in complete control of the Ministry of Magic.  I didn't know it at the time, but he's also the one who encouraged me to study all of this, probably because he was sure my loyalty to him would be assured, easily."  She blushed a bit, but continued on.  "I think he didn't count on the dissonance that resonates in our timeline, because the threads of reality have been pulled so taut.  I received a plea for help, across time, and that is what brought me here."

"I thought it was just some old man you dreamed up," said Ron.

Hermione ignored him.  "Now that Ron and I have saved Dumbledore's life, we can go into other timelines where the Ministry isn't completely taken over by Voldemort and his followers.  That's why we've got all of you here.  From what I've been able to find out, everyone here holds one key or another to Voldemort's downfall, and Severus I would appreciate it if you would stop cringing quite so much every time I said that name, thank you."

"Well, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't keep saying it, boldly as can be," he returned peevishly.

"In all seriousness, though," Remus said steadily, "I think Harry had a point.  If what Hermione is saying is right, we've got much more to worry about and fear than speaking the name of a madman."

Hermione nodded in agreement.  "We can't allow ourselves to be derailed by our fears.  What we're about to face, should you accept, would make even the most powerful of men pale in significance."

"Not if he's also a time traveler, as you suggest," Severus pointed out.  "If that is the case, we're in over our heads before we've begun."

"If we accept that, then he's already won," Hermione pointed out.  "I don't believe that that's assured, however.  Otherwise he would not have been so frightened by my actions."

"You scared him?" Harry looked at her, surprised and pride evident in his expression.  "Good job!  Feels good, doesn't it?"

That startled Hermione a little.  It wasn't something she expected anyone to say about that, actually.  After all, her first thought had just been of escape.  She, herself, had been too terrified to think of anything except how terrified she was.  After that she'd kept her mind preoccupied with other things, and the task at hand.  She'd fretted a bit over disappointing Professor Riddle, not letting herself think too hard about his alter ego, or secret identity, or whatever it was.

If she didn't think of him as Professor Riddle though, it took on a new dimension in her mind.  She'd scared the scariest man in the world, really.  When the monsters fear you, you have nothing left to fear.  "Yes," she said slowly, starting to grin.  "Yes, it really does."

They shared the grin for a moment, and Hermione found herself warming to Harry.  She'd thought she wouldn't, with the way he'd been so sullen and angry, or perfectly quiet, until now.  Maybe there was more to him than that, though.

She cleared her throat, looking away at last.  "I've got all the incidents I could find that might need correction written down, and I, er, borrowed a few books for this.  I don't know how to go about this, but I'm sure if we all started looking through it all we could come up with what we need."  Hermione brought out her book bag, making sure that Harry's cloak was still carefully at the bottom in case it was needed as a secret, later, as he'd mentioned when he'd handed it to her.  "There's quite a bit to go through, sorry.  I narrowed it down as much as I could, with the time I had."

"It's better to have too much than too little," Lily assured her, standing up to take one of the books.  "I think we should all do this in sections, maybe in pairs.  It would probably go faster that way."

"That's an excellent idea!" Sirius said.  "Remus and I can work together.  Lily and James should work together, of course, so they can get to know each other better and assure Harry's continued existence."

"I'll work with Hermione!" Ron spoke up quickly.  "No offense, but, I just, well, we know each other better, and I'd probably just hold up anyone else..."

Harry frowned a little, but he nodded.  "It's okay," he began, looking around the room.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the arrangements were perfect, until you got to the last two.  That's when it fell apart completely, and Hermione braced herself for an explosion.

"Actually," Hermione said with slow reluctance, "if you'd like to be paired with Harry, I could..."

"No," Harry said firmly.  "At least I know we'll work, instead of getting distracted by making googly eyes at each other."  He finished with a half-hearted grin.

Severus just rolled his eyes and held his hands out to accept a book from Hermione, and she complied as quickly as she could, silently vowing to make it up to Harry somehow, some day.


	19. Chapter 19

Legilimency is not the same as the Muggle concept of mind reading.  This cannot be stressed enough, once you begin attempting it.  If you go in with preconceived notions of knowing automatically what another person is thinking or feeling or what they know, you'll fail.

Not to belabor the obvious, but every mind is individually more complex than any million snowflakes.  You spend years getting comfortable in your own, and a lifetime making it more individually you.  No one has the same experiences, and no brain makes the same neural connections.  One person might see a white rose and think of their grandmother and her perfume and cookies and possibly snow, in the first layer of thought alone.  Another person might think of the time they fell down a hill into a rose bush and broke their leg and got scratched everywhere and how they never could stand the thought of roses because they remembered that pain.  That is one image you'd have to decode, once you began to try to enter the thoughts of another.

How much more complex, then, is trying to learn more about a person when you are bombarded by things that seem contradictory or nonsensical to the way your mind is set up?  To be able to decipher even one common pattern of human behavior in those around you, you must learn a great deal about human nature and psychology, whether you realize you are learning those things or not.  To know even just when those around you are lying takes a great deal of general understanding of how a person's mind works when they do lie, and what makes them lie to begin with.

It is enough to fill some people with a contempt for humanity unparalleled by what you usually see even among the most arrogant people.  They look for flaws and weaknesses in others, seeing most easily the same flaws and weaknesses they have themselves, and hate all that they find.  It is worse, even, when they know that that is what they are doing, projecting their own worst traits on others, because it only amplifies the things they hate about themselves.

For rare others, Legilimency is a blessing.  They come to accept their own failings because they are not alone, and they learn to see just how wonderful a world it is, that people can still have hope despite their flaws.  Every courageous act, every friendship, every love is proof that there is more light in the world than can be contained, because it struggles even beneath such darkness.

One attitude is, of course, more common than the other.

 

## Chapter Nineteen

## Some Other Time

 

Despite what some may assume, the pairs the way they were actually worked rather well.  It was silent in the corner that Harry and Severus shared, but otherwise everyone worked together in perfect harmony.  Some moments were crossed off as inconsequential from other accounts, and at one point James and Lily took their leave to check library over a few of the stranger cases that Hermione hadn't been sure of.  There was more discussion about what they would all be doing, but for the most part everyone just worked to try to see what tasks were ahead of them.  No one in the room truly desired a future where Voldemort became a master of time as well as the vast arsenal of curses he already had backing him.

Shortly after Lily and James returned, Severus looked up from where he'd been reading.  "You've got Peter Pettigrew's death circled, right here."

Hermione nodded slowly.  "That's right."

"Why do you have a question mark beside it?"

The only sound in the room came from the fireplace.  No one moved, and no one even breathed, waiting for Hermione's answer.

"It didn't seem to be the same person, as who had done everything else," she said quietly.  "There are a few incidents like that.  We'll do them later."

"Do you think you know who it was, then?"

Hermione hesitated and then shook her head slowly.  "Not exactly.  I just know that it isn't Voldemort or one of his followers."

Severus continued to look at her, trying to decide if she was lying or not.  He thought that she must be hiding something, just by the way she acted so nervous as she returned to the book in front of her.

"Harry," he whispered, not hoping for much, but wanting a little confirmation.  "You know her, right?"

Harry didn't even look up.  "She's hiding something.  I can't blame her, either, if it's you asking."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Severus asked, irritated.

"It means I don't like you," Harry said.

"Oh.  Right.  I'd completely forgotten for an entire second, before you so kindly reminded me.  Thank you."  He returned to what he'd been doing, wallowing in sullen silence.

Harry, for his part, didn't look up at all, but he didn't do anything but stare at the page in front of him for a while.  Severus watched him out of the corner of his eye, and finally caught Harry doing the same.

"I'm not going to apologize," Harry finally whispered peevishly.

"I wouldn't ask you to," Severus murmured, deliberately turning the page.

"In my time, you've said horrible things to me, for no reason, and you've abused your power at every opportunity.  If you ask me, the world would be better off without you, after the way you've treated me and my friends."

"Cry me a river," Severus replied, rolling his eyes.  "Life's not fair, and I probably did you a favor by showing you that.  It's certainly not something Lily and James would ever teach their own precious little brat."

"No, they didn't," Harry whispered bitterly, glaring now.  "They were killed, when I was a baby, so they didn't get much of a chance to teach me anything.  My aunt and uncle certainly taught me more about how unfair the world is than you ever could."

Severus made a show of yawning.  "It must make you feel so good, to take this out on me at last, while we're on equal footing."

"It doesn't," Harry replied immediately.  "It makes me feel worse.  I can't understand you, and why you don't care about anything."

"Is that what you think?" Severus asked, raising an eyebrow and forgetting to keep his voice down in his surprise.

Harry just nodded.

Severus turned another page.  "Here, look at that one.  She's marked it with a number one."

"Are you changing the subject?"

"No," Severus replied, looking up at Harry.  "I'm just returning it to what it was supposed to be in the first place."  He stood up and walked over to Hermione, pretending that Harry didn't exist as he pointed out the incident. 

Hermione nodded.  "I wanted to look into this one, myself, but I'm worried about it."  She bit her lower lip for a moment, until Harry joined them.  "It's going to need a careful touch, I think.  I'm not entirely sure who should attempt this one, but I also think it's the first one we should do."

"I'll do it."

"I'll do it."

Severus and Harry had both spoken at once, and they glared at each other immediately afterward.

"I'll teach you both how to use these," Hermione said, holding out two egg-shaped objects.  "It might be best if the two of you did do this together, anyway.  As you can see, the incident was most masterfully done, if it is indeed an abuse of time travel.  It doesn't necessarily need to be stopped right yet, but it must be closely observed.  I believe it is a key to understanding all of the other incidents."

"It looks as if we'll need access to the Slytherin dorms," Severus said with a frown.  "Without knowing the password at the time, that might be difficult."

"Yes, but you could go there now, and go back in time from that location," Hermione pointed out.

"We'd get caught if we both go, and even if we didn't then there is still the risk that I'd be spotted upon arrival in the past."

"That's where I'd come in," Harry said.  "I can make sure we don't get caught."

"What?" Severus scoffed.  "Can you turn invisible, or something?"

"Yes."

It stopped Severus short.  "Really?"

Harry nodded, and it was clear he was trying not to smile.

"How?"

"A Christmas present I received, my first year at Hogwarts," Harry said, smile finally winning.  "I was given an invisibility cloak."

Severus stared at Harry in a combination of awe and envy.  "I've always wanted one of those."

Harry actually laughed, and it wasn't at all mean.  "I know what you mean.  I can't imagine what it would be like, if I didn't have it."

"Can I borrow it?" Severus asked.

"No way," Harry said as he fished his invisibility cloak out of Hermione's bag.  "You're not leaving me behind.  We'll...it looks like we'll have to share."

Neither Severus nor Harry was exactly happy with the idea of having to share, but it seemed like the best solution.  Hermione quickly showed them how to travel through time and they went over what they needed to find out.  As soon as they were done, Harry slipped on the cloak and Severus stepped outside.  "Stick close," he murmured.  "I won't be able to tell if I've lost you, after all."

"Don't worry," he heard Harry whisper.  "I will.  I don't want to miss this.  Now go!"

Severus nodded and began walking, ignoring everyone else as he walked to the dungeons.  People gave him wide berth as he stalked the halls, and he was never so grateful for it as now, since he did not want to get separated from Harry and have this whole trip be a wasted effort.  It wasn't going to be much use to anyone, if he got to where and when he needed to be, but had no way of spying upon those he needed to spy on.

He reached the door to the Slytherin common room and opened it, uttering the password quietly and hoping that Harry hadn't heard it.  It was a matter of pride that only Slytherins should be able to enter at will.  He felt uncomfortable enough with the idea that he was willfully bringing a Gryffindor into the room.

Still, for the chance to use an invisibility cloak, and the ability to further his revenge against the one who almost killed him, it was worth it.  Not ideal, but he didn't think many other Slytherins would exactly fault him for it, or do otherwise if they were in his position.

He walked up into his own room where there was less of a chance of interruption, relieved that no one else was in the dorm room at the time.  He left the door open just a moment longer than he usually would and was gratified to feel the brush of invisible fabric against his arm as he waited.

Severus leaned against the door.  "I'm glad that part's over," he said with a relieved sigh.

"Yes," agreed Harry, pulling off the cloak.  "Now for the hard part."

It may be the hard part, but it was also the part that they were both looking forward to.


	20. Chapter 20

So, what is a paradox?

A paradox is a sort of a contradiction, which at first looks true or possible, but is not.  In the example a few chapters back, "this statement is false" is probably one of the most well known paradoxes in the English language.  It must be both true and false, at the same time.  Such a statement only boggles the mind, however.  It won't threaten all of reality with its inherent impossibility.

When we talk about time travel, we encounter what is called "the grandfather paradox."  The example given is a man going back in time and killing his own grandfather.  He'd either find out a stunning miscue on the part of his grandmother and the milkman, or he would cease to exist entirely.  Yet, at that moment, no one would have gone back in time to kill his grandfather, and the man would again exist to be able to go back in time to kill his grandfather and prevent his own existence.

Of course, no one in his or her right mind would test such a thing.  There are theories that state that such a thing could very well destroy the entire universe.  Anyone smart enough to create a method for time travel is smart enough to at least suspect something like that.

That is not to say, however, that just anyone who has the capability to travel through time would necessarily be in his or her right mind.

Sooner or later, the probability of it being put to the test approaches absolute, Ministry regulations or no.  With so many countries and so many differences in regulation in those countries and so many wizards who are intelligent but unethical or insane or simply driven by curiosity, what makes anyone so sure that it has not been put to the test before?

If it has or not, the Department of Mysteries, and their counterparts the world over, have offered their usual response to such inquiries.

Silence.

 

 

## Chapter Twenty

## The First Such Incident

 

The dorm room was dark, but that did not keep one of the occupants from being completely wide-awake.  There was something in the air that night.  Something important was about to happen.

The pale first-year student tossed and turned, trying to tell his subconscious to shut up and let him sleep, but it was a losing battle.  It was well past midnight, and young Tom Riddle was resigned to getting no sleep that night.  He finally slipped out of bed and out of the room, leaving the door open so that he would be able to return without a sound, later.

The Slytherin common room was deserted and almost completely dark.  The dark and somber furniture made it seem darker than it was, and Tom preferred it that way.  He sat down on a black leather couch and curled up against the arm, smiling to himself in satisfaction.  He'd never imagined living in such comfort before, but now it was here, and it was real, and his wildest dreams were beginning to come true.  Magic meant that anything was possible, and he it meant he'd never have cause to fear again.  Magic was power that none of _them_ would ever know.  He'd show them who fit in the cupboard with the rotted and moldy walls.  He'd show them who should be scrubbing the toilets with their hair.

That's what Hogwarts meant to him, after all.  It was the place of "never again".  It was the place where he'd be able to learn how to keep everyone else in his or her place.  It was the place where he'd learn how to show them that he was too as special as he thought he was, and return tenfold all of their mocking jeers.

He'd already begun, after all, with learning how to tell others what they wanted to hear to get them to do what he wanted.  That was just the first step of power, and he'd already been able to use it here as well.  The rest would come to him.  He was sure of it.

It felt like he wasn't alone, like he was being watched.  He looked around the room, frowning to himself, but there was no one there.  He circled around the couch, looking carefully, just in case, but nothing.

Tom was about to bend over and look under the furniture, just to make sure, but someone appeared in the room.  He stared with wide eyes, watching the adult wizard sort of fade into view.

"Who are you?  What are you doing here?"

The man was on the plump side, and he stood hunched over which only added to the perceived roundness.  He held his hands up near his face, and that combined with a rather pointy nose and large teeth made him appear quite rat-like.  "I am but a humble servant," the man said, bowing.  "I come bearing a gift."

"What sort of gift?" Tom demanded.  He'd been about to ask who this man was a servant of, but the prospect of gain threw that from his mind momentarily.

The man held out a package, smiling proudly.  "A gift from my Master.  You will know what to do with it, when it is time.  Do not play with it unnecessarily, though.  It is most powerful, and he said that even at your age you would know what that means."

"Of course I do," Tom scoffed.  "It means it's dangerous, but it also means it is useful to me."

"Keep it safe," the man said, bowing low and then vanishing.

Well.  That was a little more blatant than Tom had expected.  Because of that, he didn't quite trust it.  Still, he opened the package carefully.

Inside was a small, simple alabaster egg.  It was somewhere around seven or eight centimeters long, and seemed to be a simple dull white color like any other egg at first.  He reached into the small box and picked it up to look at it closer, and even in the dim light it seemed to change color to a bright blue, like the color of the summer sky.

"What are you?" he whispered, holding it up and looking closer.

He heard someone.  There was a distinct rustle of fabric, and the shuffle of feet.  Tom dropped the egg back into the box and tucked it into a pocket in an instant, looking around for whoever it might be.  Had someone woken up?  He didn't want to get in trouble if it was a Prefect, since he was working so hard to establish a good reputation.

When no one showed up immediately, Tom walked quickly but silently back into his room, shutting the door behind him.  He slipped into bed and thought about pulling the egg out, just to look at it again and try to figure out its secrets.

No, not yet.  It was dangerous, and he was tired.  That was a bad combination, even for someone much more advanced in his or her studies than he was.  The egg would wait.

With that, he forced himself to sleep at last.


	21. Chapter 21

Hello!  Love again.  What sort of power does the love of friendship have, and how can you best wield it?  Today on our show, we have a few surprise guests, including two I've borrowed from the imaginings of Mr. George Lucas. (Please don't sue me!  Insert disclaimer here!  They walked in on their own and I couldn't help but use them for this!)

Host:  Good evening, and welcome to the Random Pre-Chapter Insert Show!  Our first guest is a man who claims to have no need of love in any form.  We all know him and loathe him, please give it up for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!

Audience:  (silence)

Voldemort:  (walks out and grins, waving, then signals to the Death Eaters stationed at every aisle)

Bellatrix Lestrange:  On your feet and applaud, worms, or we'll start in with some Unforgivables!

Audience:  (applauds like their lives depend on it)

Voldemort:  Thank you.  Thank you.  You're too kind.  (sits down)

Host:  So, tell us about your views on friendship.

Voldemort:  What?

Host:  Friendship.  You do have friends, don't you?

Voldemort:  I have minions.  Do they count?

Host:  Right, and we've also got Emperor Palpatine to weigh in on the subject.  Please, some applause, so he won't bring in storm troopers.  (aside) These sets cost more money than the lot of you are worth, and we all know they can't hit human targets...but our producer can!

Emperor Palpatine:  (walks in and sits down)  Friends are a weakness in others, to be exploited.  Even minions are not to be trusted, which is why I commissioned my own vast army of clones, built to specifications that do not include pesky things such as friendship.

Host:  Nor aim, obviously.  Bureaucracy cutting a few corners, as usual.

Well, there was going to be more, but I think it would be a good idea to cut to a new chapter, while I go find myself a new host...

 

 

## Chapter Twenty-One

## Nightmare of Reason

 

Harry didn't dare let go of the cloak until they'd reappeared in Severus's time.  He was trembling slightly from the will it had required for him to not walk over and put an end to everything right then and there.

"I should have killed him right then and there," Harry muttered, finally releasing his death grip on the cloak.

Severus looked at him with a cool and measuring gaze for a minute, and then he sat down on his bed.  "If he's so bad, why didn't you?"

Harry slowly folded his cloak, frowning in thought as he did so.  "Well.  He was just a little kid, really."

"That just means it would have been easier, though, doesn't it?"

"We're supposed to be fixing paradoxes, not making them worse.  And besides that, I'd like to think I'm better than he was, to go after someone who was completely helpless.  It might be the easier way, but I'm sure it is not the right way."

Severus nodded slowly, resting his elbows on his knees awkwardly and frowning.  "Even if people are going to die, because you couldn't bring yourself to go back in time?  Didn't you say he killed your parents?"

Harry looked at the bed and thought about sitting next to him, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.  He was trying hard now to separate the Severus before him from the Professor Snape he knew and loathed in his own time, but he still couldn't bring himself to sit so close.  Instead, he sat down on the floor and hugged his knees to his chest, cloak clutched tightly to him in what space that allowed.  "He's done much worse than that," said Harry in a slow murmur, staring at the dark space beneath the bed.  "I can't begin to say it all right now, and I know that I can't be the person who has suffered the most, but the price is more than I am prepared to pay.  Even if the whole universe wouldn't completely implode, if I kill someone for who they might become, for who they are destined to be, it makes me just as bad as he is, in a way.  And that's something I can't even stand the thought of, after everything else that has happened."

Severus looked at him funny.  "I've never fancied myself the heroic type, personally, though it seems like you do.  It seems so impractical..."

Harry looked up.  "Maybe it's because you haven't had to think about it as much as I have.  Ever since I came to Hogwarts, I've had to learn much more than just magic.  First I think I had to learn how to be a human being, and that was hard enough.  My aunt and uncle and cousin treated me as less than dirt beneath their feet.  When I started Muggle school, teachers had a hard time getting my attention because I hadn't heard my own name since I was only a year old.  It was at the end of my first year here that I faced Voldemort on my own, and I knew ever since then that I had to learn as much as I could because I'd have to face him again.

"On some level or another, I've been thinking about it since that day.  Not obsessively, but it's something I haven't been able to avoid, either.  This past year, I've had extra lessons with Dumbledore, and we've talked a great deal about what I may or may not have to do.  I've learned a lot about Voldemort, and I've thought a lot about the ways we're similar, but especially the ways in which we are very different.  I need us to be different, and I don't think I can explain to anyone why I need it so much.  I mean, there's the obvious, where I don't particularly have the urge to be a cold-blooded killer, or evil, or anything of the sort, but I'll bet that the eleven-year-old we just saw didn't exactly have those sorts of aspirations, either.  It's something that just sort of happened to him along the way, because of the choices he made.  He chose to put everything, even others, under his need for power.  I think, personally, I'd up everything else in the world just to have one perfect year with someone I love.  All the power in the world, for one perfect year, even if I knew I'd die at the end of it."

"You're insane," Severus said, though not without a touch of awe in his voice.

"Probably a little," Harry conceded with a slight grin.  "If I am, I've earned it.  It's something I can deal with when this is all over, though."

"You've got a hero complex."

Harry just nodded.

"And a bit of a superiority complex."

"I hate to point it out," said Harry in a wry tone, "but you've called me a lot worse, for a lot less."

"Yes, well, twenty or so years of sharpening my wit and honing my distaste with the idiots that pass for students in this place, it doesn't surprise me in the least.  I still can't believe I came here knowing more than half of the teachers, let alone everyone attending classes."  Severus looked decidedly put out by that, and frustrated beyond belief.  "And then to be shown up in every subject, even those I know, by a filthy little mu--" Severus paused, looking at Harry and clearly taking note of the flash of anger in his eyes.  He continued a moment later; though it was obvious he'd just amended what he'd been about to say.  "--Muggle-born girl, just because she learns quickly, when I've known it all, all along."

"Yeah," said Harry, looking down at the floor now.  "Not to mention, well, I know what my dad put you through.  And I still hate you, by the way, for taking it out on me all this time, but at least you haven't done that, here.  And if I'm not going to try to kill Tom Riddle for what Voldemort will do, then I'd be an idiot to hold all that against you, if there's a chance it could change, right?  Besides that, I know what it's like, and--"

"Spare me your pity," Severus said sharply.

"But it's not!" Harry said, glaring.  "I've wished I could say something about it for a year now, since I found out, because no one deserves to be treated the way my dad treated you, and I know it.  No matter how unpleasant they are."

Severus rolled his eyes and stood up.  "We should have returned by now.  The others will be concerned, and probably do something stupid like try to find us, if we don't hurry up."

Harry hesitated and then stood also, heaving a heavy sigh.  He put his cloak on without another word, frustrated with himself for making the attempt to reach out to this past version of Snape, and even more frustrated with Snape for acting as if he were allergic to any sign of kindness or friendship.  Then again, Harry knew that soon, if some things continued unchanged even by Peter Pettigrew's death, Severus would become a Death Eater.  How close was he to that, already?  How had it happened?  Was it because he didn't have any other friends?  Or was there something fundamentally wrong with Snape that he'd turn to evil?

He cringed inwardly as a voice within his mind that sounded eerily like Hermione's pointed out (as the real Hermione had many, many times) that Dumbledore trusted Snape.  Harry had never put much stock in that idea, because Snape was just so cruel and biased and petty and greasy and ugly and, well, evil.  Wasn't he?  But, there was something about meeting him on equal ground that took that away and sort of deflated him in Harry's eyes.  Something sad and lonely about the other boy sort of made him wish there was something he could do, to turn Snape from the path ahead of him.

That could be just as wrong and just as dangerous as anything else that changed the past, though.  If Harry had his way, he'd start with saving his parents, but he knew that it was out of the question.  He'd been sorely tempted by the idea the first time he'd found out that time travel was possible, but Hermione had been right.  He could not do these things.  He could not interfere.  He could not change the past.

And yet, someone was doing that even now.  Voldemort was doing that, and Hermione had suggested that someone else was, as well.  Not to mention, they were interfering in the past right now, just by being here, no matter how they told themselves that they were just correcting a problem that someone else had begun.  They were interfering.  And really, would it destroy the universe to save his parents and Sirius and let Peter die and maybe even help Severus grow up to be someone decent?

He thought of all of those things as he followed Severus back to the Room of Requirement.  When they walked inside, he was no closer to having answers than he was when they'd started, of course, but he was a little more aware of what the questions he had were.  He didn't think he could ask them, though.  Hermione would lecture him at length, of course.  The others...might go along with it, with all the right intentions, but would that make it better?

For now, he'd keep it all to himself and just tell them what they'd seen in the past.  That was for the best, until he knew more.

Harry slipped off the cloak as he closed the door and smiled.  For now, it was unimportant.  Only if Cedric had been in the room would everything seem more as if every bad thing in his life had been erased.

Maybe he was having his "perfect year" right now.  He decided he would take it.


	22. Chapter 22

Hello, and welcome back to our show.  Before our break, we'd brought in the bad guys, Voldemort and Emperor Palpatine, from Harry Potter and Star Wars fame, respectively, to talk about friendship.

Clean Up Crew:  (cart corpse of Host from the stage)

New Host:  Where were we?  Ah, yes.  Friendship.  Are there any further thoughts from either of you?

Voldemort:  Friendship is overrated.  People are inherently selfish and unreliable.  I'd rather trust in fear or greed to motivate others to aid me, rather than whatever mystery emotion it is that prompts friends.  Oh, sure, in times of trouble they will occasionally come to your aid, but any other time, there's no telling what they'll be saying about you behind your back or what they'll get upset over for no reason at all.

Emperor Palpatine:  I do not have any friends, myself, but it is a handy thing to exploit.  In fact, I gained my favorite apprentice by pretending to be his friend.  Sure, he whines a little, but I just kick him and he stops.  He's loyal to the end, because of the illusion of friendship, but if you're going to be practical it's no good to indulge in actual feelings for an inferior.  (leans close to Voldemort with a chuckle)  And, they are all inferior, are they not?

Voldemort:  Indeed.

Emperor Palpatine:  Even a "best friend" should never hinder you, because one never knows when someone better suited to your purposes will come along.  It's like having a favorite starship.  I loved the design of the Star Destroyer, but that did not prevent my appreciation for the Super Star Destroyer or the Death Star.  They're just tools, to be used in the acquisition of power.

New Host:  Thank you.  When we come back, we will have a rebuttal from the opposition.  Stay tuned.

Luke Skywalker:  (offstage)  Did you hear that, Father?  He's not your friend!  He just wants to use you!

Darth Vader:  (offstage)  (breathe)  You may have a point....

 

 

## Chapter Twenty-Two

## Tasks and Trials

 

James had watched Harry and Snape walk out of the room with a bit of trepidation, especially since Harry had given up the secret of his cloak the way he had, but it made sense.  Harry had to know that James had his own cloak available in case of an emergency, so there would still be something in reserve.

He honestly tried, while they were gone, to concentrate on the task at hand, but it was difficult to concentrate, and when Harry and Snape finally returned he breathed a loud sigh of relief and slumped over the book that Lily had been looking through.

Lilly giggled softly.  "You're cute when you're concerned.  Almost fatherly."

"I'd hope it's only almost," James said quietly in return.  "He's our age right now, after all.  It's a little strange, but I can't look at him without knowing he's ours.  Yet, we've never even kissed."

"After this is finished," Lily replied a bit smugly.  "Now get off the book so that we can."

"Sorry," said James as he straightened.  "Where were we?"

"The Longbottoms.  You remember Frank, right?  He was Head Boy a couple of years ago."

James nodded, looking at the name in the book.  "So, what's wrong?"

"I can't really tell," Lily frowned and tapped the name with her fingernail as she thought.  "In the book here, he dies about ten years from now, but there's a note written in about an 'Alice Jorkins' to be cross-referenced.  There was a Jorkins girl a few years ahead of us, wasn't there?"

James nodded solemnly.  "She's one of the girls who'd show up at practices to watch us fly every week.  I think her favorite was one of the other players, but she told me that if I kept at it, I could play for any team I want, back in year three.  Her family disappeared over the next summer vacation."

"Oh, that's right," Lily whispered.  "I'd forgotten her name."

"From what I heard from the other guys on the team, Frank took it particularly hard.  He'd had a crush on her for years, but was too shy to say anything to her directly."

Lily nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  "Do you think she's not supposed to have died?"

James grinned.  "Maybe they'd have gotten married.  Rumor has it that Frank is studying to become an Auror, and I'm certain Alice could have if she'd wanted to.  She was very smart, and very brave."

"You're just saying that," Lily said as she poked James in the ribs, "because she paid you a compliment."

"You think so," said James, "with all the letters I get from secret, and not-so-secret, admirers?"

"You're impossible!" Lily exclaimed in exasperation, shaking her head.

"And yet, with so many to pick from, you're the one I've wanted all along."

"Flatterer," Lily blushed.

"Maybe a little," James said, "but not this time.  I mean every word.  So, what do you say, Mrs. Future James Potter, would you like to become a time traveler so that we can save a nice girl from a not-so-nice time traveler?"

"That would be, 'the Future Mrs. James Potter', and don't say that as we haven't even properly dated let along had time for a proposal, and I'd love to."

"It could be our first date," James teased.

"Romance is dead," she replied, kissing his cheek in passing as she stood up.  "Hermione, I think we've got something."

 

Half an hour later, the two of them walked into the library together.  Their friendly banter had been set aside, and in its stead was a sort of grim determination.  They weren't sure exactly how to save the girl's life.  They hoped that once they were there, something would reveal itself.

Before they'd left, they'd borrowed Harry's cloak.  James felt a bit strange doing that, and he'd caught the amusement in Harry's eyes at the absurdity of him borrowing his own cloak from his son.  It wasn't all that strange, though.  As soon as he had it in his hands, he knew it was the very same cloak he'd used in so many of his own escapades around the school.  It warmed him with a strange sense of continuity.

"This will probably take us longer than it took Harry and Snape," James murmured as they made their way past desks and tables.

Lily just nodded as they approached the Restricted Section.  This didn't even bring them a raised eyebrow, however, since they'd been in and out of there so many times in the last couple of months, separately.  Lily even pulled out a piece of paper, about to show it, but she was waved off.

"I've seen it a hundred times in the past month, dear," Madam Pince said in passing, as she hurried over to harangue a first year who had wandered in with hands sticky from some sweet he'd been eating just before entering the library.

"Amazing luck," James whispered in admiration.

"I know!" she whispered in return.  "Let's hurry, before she realizes what she's just done."

They hid themselves among the shelves, where no one else was hanging around, and they held onto each other while they activated the tiny eggs.  James quickly wrapped the cloak around them both and they hurried out of the library.

"How are we going to get out, without being seen?" Lily whispered.  She said it so quietly, and leaned so close to him, that it tickled his ear.

"Trust me," he whispered back, smiling to himself when she shivered at the proximity.  In the guise of keeping the cloak shut, he put an arm around her and held her closer while they walked, guiding her to an empty classroom.  Once they were in there he let her go and slid the cloak off.  "I just need to check something, first.  With two of us, I want to make sure we've got enough time so that we don't get caught."

James pulled out the Marauder's Map, setting it down on a desk and looking at it closely.  He tapped it with his wand to enlarge one area, grinning a little after a moment.  "Look, it's us."

Lily looked over his shoulder.  "Where?"  She leaned closer and then smiled as well.  "Why, so it is!  I didn't know Harry's map could do that.  Did you borrow it from him?"

James chuckled, enlarging another area.  "Oh, no.  Look at the header on it a little closer."  He was feeling delightfully smug over this chance to brag over his accomplishment.

" _Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs._   Why, those are the nicknames you were using, earlier!"

"We made it the year before last, when Professor Dumbledore said he'd have to expel us if we were caught out of bounds one more time that month.  And I'm sure you may have noticed, we haven't been caught since."

Lily shook her head, tutting softly in her disapproval.  "Brilliant I'm sure, but James...you can't go around bending the rules your entire life and expect to get away with it."

"I know," he admitted, thinking of Peter once again.  "I couldn't imagine there'd be any more serious consequence than detention with Filch, though, and detention is simply a way to pass the time.  Or, it has been, until recently.  It's just that, I learn by doing things, not by listening to someone else tell me how.  And it's always been a bit of a bonus if I could try something out and get a few laughs out of it at the same time, you know?"

"Promise me you'll stop?" Lily said, looking into his eyes.

"I already have," he said.  "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"James..."

"I promise!"  He held a hand up, as if testifying in court.

"Thank you," Lily said, smiling at him now.

James nodded.  "Now, Filch and Hagrid are off making sure everyone is getting to the train, and everyone else is wandering around, doing whatever it is that professors do when they're not teaching or screaming at troublemakers like me.  It looks like we won't have any problems getting to this passage, here, on the fourth floor.  We'll use the cloak, just in case, but it should be no trouble."

"Let's hurry then, so we can get this done.  Do you still have the piece of paper with her address?"

"Yes, right here in my pocket.  Don't worry, we'll get this done, and we'll save her."  He pulled the cloak out again, checking over the map one last time before tucking it into a pocket.  "As soon as we're off the grounds, we'll Apparate there and then move ahead in time to just before the attack."

"How are we going to save them, though?  Go in with spells blazing and try to save Alice's life?"

"Unless you can think of something better," James said, pulling the cloak over them both.

They left the room and easily made it to the hidden passage behind the mirror.  Quite a bit of walking was involved, and it was passed in silence until about half way there.

"How long is this tunnel?" Lily asked, whispering automatically in the dark and enclosed space.

"All the way to Hogsmeade," James said in a matching tone.  It was automatic for him to tend toward stealth in the tunnels, just in case.  He wasn't entirely sure who might know about each one, after all, though he and the others were beginning to suspect they were the only ones who knew about this one and a couple of others as well.

"Do you think we're off the school grounds by now, then?"

James gave her a pointed look.  "I'd rather Apparate from somewhere a bit less cramped, personally.  I may have done the test perfectly, but it still makes me a bit jumpy.  However, if you think you can do it better, then be my guest.  I'll meet you there in half an hour."

Lily quickly shook her head.  "It's not that," she said.  "I just don't trust the walls.  Well, I don't particularly trust being this far underground, to tell the truth."

"Nothing will happen," James said.  "I promise."  To back up his promise and assure her further, he took her hand and held it while they walked.  "I've been down this tunnel more times than I can count, and I assure you that it's perfectly safe."

Lily squeezed his hand tightly at first, and her fingers were cold and clammy.  He quickly warmed her hand, soothing her as they went.  He murmured softly, about nothing at all.  He was just too happy to be together with the girl he'd wanted so long and thought he'd never have.

Even after meeting Harry, he wasn't taking anything for granted about Lily, though.  Harry seemed to have known Peter, and had been very surprised to find that he was dead, so that was a pretty obvious indication that things might not go entirely the way Harry remembered, on this current track.  What if something very important was supposed to happen between them to bring them together, but now it wouldn't because of Peter's death and the sudden appearance of the other time travelers?  Should he ask Harry about it, or would that be just as detrimental to his chances as the rest of this.

By the time they reached the end of the tunnel, James had his arm around Lily possessively and protectively, truly realizing how lucky he just might be, and how unlucky he could end up being.  "When this is over," he murmured as they walked out into the warm sunshine, "I'd like to take you on a real date, and do this all the right way.  I might act like a total prat sometimes in front of my friends, and you've been right to say I am, but I want to change that if it's okay with you.  All year I've been trying my hardest to catch your eye and show you that I've changed, just for you.  And now that I've got your attention, I don't want to mess it up."

Lily stared at him for a minute in which his heart raced and he almost managed to convince himself that he'd screwed it all up right then and there.  Eventually she smiled at him, after something that was either five seconds or five years, and gave him a tight hug.  "I think that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.  I'd like that, very much."

It made the rest of what they had to do seem like it would be the easiest thing in the world, to James.


	23. Chapter 23

New Host:  Welcome back.  I trust you are all refreshed, after that note from our sponsors?  Good!  Now, I would like to introduce three very interesting and diverse heroes to our stage.  First, we have one of two Chosen Ones.  Please put your hands together for our favorite anti-hero, Anakin Skywalker!

Darth Vader:  (enter, stage left)  That name is no longer who I am.

Audience:  (eyes Forces of Evil interspersed among them and applaud reluctantly)

New Host:  Yes, well, Mr. Darth Vader, then.  Can you tell us your thoughts on friendship?

Darth Vader:  I thought, long ago, that my friends had all betrayed me.  Love was a sham, and emotions were the greatest weakness of all.  Lately though, I have grown unsure, and wonder if, perhaps, I should have listened to my old mentor and friend, instead of killing him.

Luke Skywalker:  (walks in)  You think?

Audience:  (applauds enthusiastically)

Darth Vader:  (breathe)

New Host:  Good evening to you, too, Luke Skywalker.  Perhaps you'd care to share your own feelings on the subject?

Luke Skywalker:  You know, my friends have gotten me into some tight spots, but I've done the same to them at times.  It all balances out in the end, though.  It's what friends are for.  I'd do anything for my friends, because I know they'd do the same for me.  If you ask me, it sure beats the alternative.

New Host:  And now, we're running out of time, but we've got one last guest.  The Chosen One.  The Boy Who Lived.  Let's give it up for this fanfic's very own star, Harry Potter!

Audience:  (goes wild, despite glowering Death Eaters every three feet)

Harry:  (is blushing, waves to everyone and sits down quickly)  Hi.

New Host:  Before we have to go, can you tell us a few things about friendship and what you think of your friends?

Harry:  Without my friends, I wouldn't be here.  It's as simple as that.  My mother sacrificed her life to save me, but even that would not have been enough without the friendship of Professor Dumbledore, and later my friendships with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Sirius, and everyone, really.  No one can tell me that friendship, or love, is not worth it.  Friendship is what makes life worth living, when there seems to be no other reason to go on.

New Host:  So, you think the villains over here are...

Harry:  Sadly, gravely mistaken, yes.  Oh, and they're all doomed.  Even if they accomplish everything they set out to do, they'll never be happy with it, because they don't have any friends to share their accomplishments with.  There's no happiness, no satisfaction, without love.  It's really much more powerful than people like them could ever imagine.

New Host:  I now return everyone to their regularly scheduled fanfic.  I hope you enjoyed this interlude, and that it brought some food for thought to you, as it did to me.  Thank you, and good night.

 

 

## Chapter Twenty-Three

## Fool-Proof Plans Rarely Are

 

They stood upon a hill, black figures against an even blacker sky, robes stirring in a cool summer breeze.  It made the trees beneath them whisper, but upon the hill the only whispers came from the pair standing there.

"I always wanted another shot at that girl," one of them was saying in an excited whisper.  "She gave in entirely too easily the first time, and I've heard that teenagers can be amusing when put under the Cruciatus Curse."

"We're here for business, not pleasure," the other one said in a low tone just above a whisper.  "We're to kill the whole family and return, and that means no torture.  The Dark Lord said you've already had your chance with that."

"There was a time," the first whispered, "that you were eager to please and eager to prove yourself to everyone, and not just Him.  I think all that time at Hogwarts has made you soft, Snape.  All that time as Dumbledore's man--"

"Don't!" Snape growled in a voice that was somehow soft and yet commanding at the same time.  "I think after all that's happened, my loyalty should cease to be questioned by the likes of you, Bellatrix.  Let's get this finished."

Bellatrix Lestrange nodded at once, eager to get this done mostly so that she wouldn't have to work with Snape any longer than necessary.  She still resented him his cushy job at Hogwarts and the great amounts of faith the Dark Lord placed in Snape's loyalty, after all she had been through.  It didn't matter to anyone but her if she liked him or not, though, as long as they both did as they were told.

They walked in silence to the Jorkins place, keeping a good six paces between them.  Bellatrix worked harder at it than Snape did, but there was no love lost between them on either side.  It might have been amusing to an outside observer, how they tried to avoid any accidental proximity invasions, but no one was around to watch them as they walked.  The streets were silent and dark, with only the full moon to light their way.

"That's their house," Snape hissed, coming to a stop.  "There's a light on in a bedroom, but it shouldn't matter."

"I may be mad," Bellatrix said, fixing her wild eyes on Snape, "but I am not yet blind at all.  I can tell a hacksaw from a handkerchief, when the wind is westerly."

He winced at the butchering of the quote, but didn't say anything about it otherwise.  "Go in through the front door, and I'll approach from the back.  We want them all dead, and there's to be no befouling the past with the untimely presence of the Dark Mark."

She sauntered right up to him, pressing close in a threatening manner, as if she expected to meet his eye directly though she was much shorter than he.  "I know my job.  Killing curse only, no fun, and no lasting presence.  If you order me around again, I just might mistake you for someone else when we start flinging curses about in there, you know.  Just a thought."

He leaned down to her level, giving her a smugly superior grin.  "I know better than to turn my back on you.  Even if you were loyal to me instead of the Dark Lord, I'd sleep with armor on and drink only antidotes the rest of my life."

She stood her ground, trying to cow him still, but to no avail.  She finally gave up, muttering darkly, but Bellatrix followed his orders and walked directly to the front door of their victims' house.  She waited a moment before entering, giving Snape a chance to enter as well, but probably not enough time.  She was unconcerned with him, now that it was time to follow her own orders as she saw fit.  As long as the job was done, it was no one else's business how it had been done.  Alice Jorkins, and her entire family, would die tonight.  No one would hear them, and no one would know what happened, and that would be one less Auror to worry about, and it would also be one less...no, two less Longbottoms to meddle in their affairs.  Without Alice married to Frank, they wouldn't have that pudgy boy who had befriended Harry Potter and been such an annoyance that time at the Ministry of Magic.  And, in her opinion, any subtraction from those numbers that night was a welcome change.

Better yet, what if none of that ever happened?  Bellatrix rather like that idea, and grinned as she walked further into the darkened home.  Now, which room had been lighted?  It didn't matter.  She threw open doors at random, casting spells as she went just in case someone was caught by surprise.

All the rooms were dark, and no one was in any of them.  That couldn't be right, but it was still the case.  They'd seen the light, though, from outside.  She knew it.

In fact, where was Snape now?  He should be in here by now, at least screaming his fool head off that she'd made so much noise on that last door.

She was alone.

Bellatrix was completely alone, and she shrieked in anger over it.  How had that happened?  Impossible!  They'd planned it so carefully, and there was no reason she should be alone right now!  This was revenge!  The first time she hadn't had nearly as much reason to hate Alice Longbottom, but now she did and she wanted to get her measure of revenge for all her time in Azkaban!

There was no greater burning hate, she thought as she ran through the house, running out to the back door and stopping in her tracks.  There was someone else out there.  Well, of course there was!  Snape was out there, dawdling as always and screwing everything up.  He'd probably have a handy excuse for that, but she knew he did it on purpose!  He did it to ruin everything, because he was practically Dumbledore's lapdog.  He was!

Bellatrix lifted her hands to her head, shutting out the voices that told her about Snape and all the things he'd done and continued to do against her and everyone else.  The Dark Lord trusted Snape.  That alone should be enough, but even if it weren't she knew that Snape had killed Dumbledore in the end.  Anything else was as the buzzing of an insect.  Insignificant.

Buzzing.

Insect.

What was going on back here?

Bellatrix stepped outside into the garden and into the moonlight.  "Who are you?  What are you doing in my garden?" she demanded.

"Your garden?" some woman shrieked from the darkness.

Bellatrix grinned, aiming her wand and firing off a curse in one swift motion.  There was nothing like the element of surprise.

"Drop your wand," someone said in a stony voice from right beside her.

"Now," someone else commanded, from her other side.

"Death first!" Bellatrix cried, trying to dodge out of the way.  She was immediately immobilized, though, and fell awkwardly on her face.

A moment later her consciousness was stolen from her, as well.


	24. Chapter 24

I happen to like white roses.  They remind me of white butterflies, and how my grandmother had a friend once who, every time one of them would think of the other, the other would see a white butterfly, and they'd usually call each other.  I don't know how true it is, but that's what they told each other.  It makes a beautiful story.  I always wanted a friend like that.

 

## Chapter Twenty-Four

## Got You Where I Want You

 

It felt like a day or two later, but only a few hours had passed for most of the group in the Room of Requirement.  Lily was curled up on a couch, taking a nap, while James and the rest kept close eyes on their new prisoners.  Snape and Bellatrix were still unconscious, and were now tied to chairs on opposite sides of the room.  Snape, of course, was snoring loudly and drooling on himself, which caused Severus no end of discomfort.

James sat in silent vigil over Bellatrix with Sirius at his side, wishing that something would happen already.  Sirius kept staring at her in rapt fascination.  James thought he knew why, too.  Sirius's cousin was supposed to be only a few years older than they were, but it looked like she'd aged more than fifty overnight.  She was gaunt, and her hair was frizzy and unkempt and shot through with gray.  Her skin was sallow and pale, and her eyes were shadowed and sunken.

"What happened to her?" Sirius asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Azkaban," Harry answered shortly.  "When Voldemort was defeated, they made Dementors the guards."

Hermione nodded.  "They guard Azkaban in our time as well, though they're hardly restricted to it.  They've been known to wander off, from time to time.  It's a problem, but no one knows what to do about it, and there simply aren't any better guards."

"Has the future gone insane?" James asked, looking at them both funny.

"Hers has, if Riddle is a professor," Harry said.  "I think in my own, no one knew what else to do with them.  They also didn't count on Voldemort's return, of course."

Remus paced through the center of the room, frowning thoughtfully.  "How long until they wake up, anyway?  And what are we going to do, now that we've got prisoners."

Everyone looked to Hermione for answers, since she'd started the quest.  She shrugged and shook her head, though.  "I don't know.  I never counted on something like this happening."

Harry stood, looking around the room.  "Well, we've got their devices," he said.  "They can't time travel without them.  Should we bother to interrogate them, since we know what they're after anyway?"

Ron rolled his eyes.  "We've known what they're after all along.  They're just going back to kill the competition right?  Obvious, if you ask me."

Hermione nodded.  "They're no better than brainless minions, really.  Anyone loyal to Voldemort could have done this, I think.  No offense, Severus."

The younger Severus Snape rolled his eyes.  "Oh, none taken, since you're only talking about me over there, you know."

"You're obviously superior, though," she replied.  "You're thinking for yourself, instead of following blindly after some madman who doesn't even care if he destroys the entire universe."

"Forgive me if I fail to see the distinction, when you're basically doing the same thing and meddling with time just to ensure that your own side comes out ahead."

"I am NOT!" Hermione exploded, jumping toward him in anger.  "I don't care about sides!  I care about how my entire world is showing signs of this breakdown!  If Professor Riddle wins, fine, as long as we survive it!"

Everyone stared at her as if she'd lost her mind for a minute, and she looked around the room self-consciously.

"Besides," she said in a completely different tone, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.  "We haven't killed anybody.  That makes a difference, doesn't it?"

Severus shrugged, looking at his older self.  "I suppose it depends on what you plan on doing with these two.  I may not like the thought of bowing mindlessly to some puppet master, but he's still me and I don't like the idea of something happening to him."

"We can send them back," Hermione said reluctantly.  "If we did, though, I wouldn't be able to study the devices they used, and I sorely want to."

"What if we sent only one of them back," Sirius said.  "I vote for getting rid of my cousin, here.  She's giving me the creeps, and much more than just the usual ones."

James piped in, "Trust me, that's quite a bit, and I agree.  Remember what she looked like, at the house?"

When Lily and James had found the house and seen what it would require to save the family, they'd come back and enlisted the aid of the others, bringing Hermione, Ron, and Sirius with them.  Harry and Severus were forced to stay behind since they'd already had their turn at traveling, and Remus had remained behind due to the full moon.

"She looked completely mad, if you ask me," Ron said.

"She is," Harry said slowly, seeming sad for some unknown reason.  "Nearly fifteen years, locked up in Azkaban with Dementors and the screams of other prisoners for company?  Only the best of men would not be driven completely mad, or worse.  Then again, I'm fairly sure she wasn't completely sane to begin with."

"That's true enough," Sirius agreed.  "Half my family is like that, though.  It's why I left."

"I know," said Harry softly, finding a seat and staring at the floor for a bit.

After a moment of silence, James cleared his throat, not liking the heavy atmosphere that seemed to loom over his future son at times like this.  "So.  How do we send one or both of them back?  Do we have to let them have their devices to do it?"

Hermione shook her head.  "I was thinking we would have to destroy them.  In theory, the device used to transport someone through time then holds them in that time, if you're using the method I devised myself.  Since the egg shape is the same for them, and they react the same way as the ones I made, I have to assume that they are going by my design somehow.  If you destroy the device, you destroy the anchor they've got to the time that they are alien to.  The problem is that when you destroy one of them, there is a magical backlash upon the one who created them, at the point of their creation."

"What sort of backlash," James asked.

"Devastating, I'd imagine," Hermione answered promptly.  "If it were simply one device, it would be survivable at least.  If it were all, I would not count on it."

"These things could kill you?" Ron demanded, eyes bulging.  "And you've let us touch them?  You've let us use them?"

Hermione sighed.  "I knew what risks I faced when I created the spell, Ron.  If it weren't worth risking my life for, I wouldn't have done it."

Ron still stared at her in complete and total disbelief.

"Moving on," Hermione sighed.  "The real issue is how someone else has my design.  It's impossible for them to have obtained it from my time, because the contamination doesn't originate from there.  But, who else would come up with the exact same thing as me?"

"Only yourself," Remus mused, pausing in his pacing.  "Why would you, though?"

Harry frowned.  "In my time, you'd be the last person to do something like this.  You know better than anyone I know, what the consequences might be.  You were even given a Time Turner in our third year, to help you with attending all the classes you wanted, and you gave me quite a lecture which was maybe a tenth of the lecture you received when you managed to get it, I'm sure."

"I did?" Hermione said, perking up.  "That happened to me, too!  It's part of the reason I pursued this line of research!"

Ron frowned.  "Do you think, if things went bad enough, that you might come up with the same spell to try to set things right?"

"Of course not!" Hermione started immediately.  "Well, I don't think so," she prevaricated a moment later.  "I can't imagine anything that bad happening."

"What if it seemed as if there was no other hope, though?" Harry asked.  "You've already done it for this.  I think, if things went bad enough, the Hermione I know would do it if she thought she could."

"Yes, but how would these two obtain them, in that case?" she demanded.  "I'd never help with something like this!"

"I don't know," Harry admitted.  "The Hermione I know would rather die than help Voldemort or any of his followers."

"I can assure you that I am the exact same way," Hermione said.

"Then your spell was somehow stolen," Severus said, frowning.  "We'd have to go to that time, to see who would do that, and why, and how."

Hermione shook her head.  "I think," she said slowly, and with great reluctance, "that we must destroy all of the devices.  Only then can we be sure that none of this will have happened."

"How are we going to find all of the enemy eggs, though?" Ron asked.

That's not what bothered James, though.  He saw the look in Hermione's eyes, and he'd actually listened to her words.  If he wasn't mistaken (and from the looks some of the others gave her, he wasn't the only one to come to this conclusion) when she'd said all of the devices, she'd meant the ones she'd created as well.


	25. Chapter 25

Smile.  It is a scientific fact that it makes you feel better.  It's an emotional fact that it makes others feel better, as well.

If you're having problems with this, I've got pictures of puppies, kittens, and small children to share that look cuter and cause much less trouble than the real thing.

 

## Chapter Twenty-Five

## It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses Their Life

 

It was ridiculously easy for Hermione to destroy the first egg.  She thought it would have been at least emotionally difficult, but once Bellatrix had regained consciousness her last remaining qualms vanished.  It merely took an act of will, and both the egg and the insane woman vanished.

The silence left behind was deafening, and it lasted nearly half a minute.

"Thank Merlin," the older Snape groaned.  "I thought she'd never shut up."

Severus glared at him.  "Shut up.  You're not allowed to be relieved she's gone, you traitor."

Snape looked at his younger self in shock, but it was nothing compared to the shock on Harry, Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily's faces.  Only Ron and Hermione seemed immune, though they both looked a bit confused even still.

Snape recovered quickly.  "What in the hell is your problem?  Did someone go back in time and give me brain damage?"

"What are you doing, working with her?  She's bloody insane, even now!"

"Who are you," Snape said coldly, glaring intensely, "to call me a traitor, when you seem to be working with Black and Potter."  He paused, looked at Harry, and sneered.  "Both of them."

Severus crossed his arms, glaring back with just as much intensity.  "And you, working with time travelers?  Do you know who it was who came back to kill me and ended up thinking it was just as good to kill Pettigrew?  Or are you so used to working with the insane and otherwise mentally infirm that it's just a coincidence that one of them tried to kill us?"

Hermione almost spoke up, to point out again that she thought it was a different party responsible for that particular event, but doubt hit her.  Could she really be so sure?

"You won't understand until you've been through it," Snape replied.  "I do not have to answer to you for another fifteen years, at least."

"Don't you dare speak to me as if I am merely an ignorant child!" Severus screamed back at him.  "I know you better than anyone else ever will, and I can't stand the sight of you!"

Snape rolled his eyes.  "Save it," he said.  "I've heard it all before, at least a million times."

"Stop it!" Hermione said, standing between the two and holding out her hands.  "I don't know why you're yelling at yourself like this, Severus, but stop!  It's not going to help."

"Oh, I don't know," said Harry, covering his mouth to (unsuccessfully) hide a grin.  "I'm finding it to be rather amusing, myself."

"Shut up, Harry," Severus snapped.

"Shut up, Potter," Snape barked at the same time.

Harry had to turn away as he fought not to laugh.

"I'm not amused," Hermione said, trying to glare at all three of them at once.  Harry seemed to find this a comical attempt, but the Snapes weren't impressed.

"I'm with Harry, on this one," James said, grinning.  "I'm sorry, Severus.  Seeing you yell at yourself like that is too much.  I hope you realize I'd be laughing harder if it was any of the rest of us, though, at least."

"Speak for yourself," Sirius chortled.

"This isn't helping your whole case for friendship," young Severus said darkly.

"I know," James said pathetically.  "I'm sorry.  I really am."

The older Snape, for his part, was now looking completely bewildered.  "What is going on here?  What's happened?"

"Peter died saving your, or at least _his_ life," Remus explained to Snape.  "So, to make it worth something, we've decided to turn over new leaves and befriend, um, him."

"And you're stupid enough to believe that?" Snape demanded, looking at his younger self.

"Believe it, yes."  Severus replied.  "Buy into it?  No.  Not for a moment.  And don't you dare call me stupid."

"I'll call you whatever I want."

"You'll lick his boots if we say," James said, standing up and looking firm.  "He's our friend.  You're not.  You're just a prisoner."

"James," Severus said with a bit of a frown, "do you have any idea how disturbing that actually is to me?"

"Not really," James said.  "If we run into my older self, I'll be sure to offer up the opportunity."

"Dad!" Harry protested in shock.

Severus looked as if the concept had entirely broken his mind.

James just shrugged.  "It would be weird, but..." he trailed off with a shrug.

Severus continued to look at him funny.

Snape rolled his eyes.  "Since I'm your prisoner," he sneered, "what are you, a bunch of kids, planning on doing with me?"

"We could kill him," Harry offered hopefully.

"Harry," Hermione admonished.

"I wouldn't suggest it for the other one, and that's an improvement.  Just the old Snape."

"We're not killing anyone," Hermione said firmly.

"Hear that, Sevvie?" Sirius teased.  "She's soft on you.  Just saved your life."

Both Snapes twitched, in unison.

"If I never hear that offensive diminutive again, I will die a happy man," Severus said.

"I meant him," Sirius protested, pointing at the ugly, bitter, glaring old professor.  "You're our friend, and you've even stopped forgetting to shower every night.  By the time you're this git's age, you'll be a person worth knowing!"

"That's enough, Sirius," Lily said, frowning.  "You can't insult one without the other, so just stop it."

"If we didn't tease him, he'd think we didn't like him anymore." Sirius said, pouting cutely.  "Come on, Mom, just a few more barbs for old times?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Severus protested.  "You never liked me in the first place."

"I almost did," Sirius said brightly.  "For about ten minutes, when we were talking about eviscerating whoever is responsible for all this.  Remember?"

"Oh, yes, how can I forget," Severus said, voice dripping with sarcasm.  "I think I fell in love that night."

"You, too?" Sirius said.  He got up and bounded over to Severus, then posed on one knee before him.  "Such a connection that can never be forgotten, nor laid aside!"

Remus pretended to look shocked.  "But, Sirius, didn't last night mean anything to you?  What about us?"

"I'm going to be sick," the older Snape said, turning his head away.

Harry looked like he wanted to agree, but he kept his mouth shut.  Everyone else in the room just laughed.  Even Severus joined in with the joviality, though his was a bit more reserved than everyone else.

It was short lived, however.  They still had to figure out what to do with the other Snape.

"I don't suppose," Ron began, hesitantly, "that if we ask you really nicely you'll just tell us who you got the time travel spell from?"

"That depends, Mr. Weasley," Professor Snape said mockingly.  "If I ask you really nicely, will you sprout a brain between your ears?  Tell me.  Is there any reason I should answer to any of you here?"

"And this guy's a professor?" Ron asked, turning away with a slightly disturbed expression.  "Even Riddle is nicer than he is."

"Professor Snape," Hermione began, "we really--"

"Of course," Snape interrupted.  "The know-it-all speaks next."

Hermione snapped her mouth shut, shocked.

The room fell silent for a bit, and then young Severus finally spoke up.

"Actually," he drawled, "I can think of one perfect reason for you to answer this and have done with us."

"Oh really?" Snape asked, glaring a bit.  "And what might that be?"

"The sooner you help us, the sooner you'll be done with us all and we'll release you."

It only took Snape a minute to agree that his younger self was perfectly right.  He began to tell them at least some of what they asked, and it confirmed everything that Hermione had dreaded about the past, the present, and all of the possible futures.


	26. Chapter 26

Laughter is not the thing that some people seem to assume.  Laughing is a way for humans to cope with overwhelming pain.  Honestly, how many of you find tickling to be pleasant?  And yet, tickling others is almost irresistible, because it is almost guaranteed that the victim will laugh.  The funniest jokes are about sex gone wrong, or just sex at all when you're young enough that it's an uncomfortable or scary subject, or about death, or about someone being painfully stupid, or someone getting hurt.  You smile when you see something pretty.  You laugh when you see someone getting hit in the crotch, or when the sourpuss old lady who has made your life miserable walks down the street with her skirt tucked into her panties.

When someone dies, laugh.  Not out in public where you'll face the wrath of the sourpuss old ladies, but laugh.  As soon as you are capable, laugh.  It won't make things all better, but it will make them less wrong.  When we laugh with our friends, in a loud and roaring chorus, there is more healing in the room than a convention of psychiatric professionals.

 

 

## Chapter Twenty-Six

## Whistling in the Dark

 

The silence that followed Snape's story was a long one.  People kept starting to speak, but words failed them all.

"I believe I have met your condition for my release?" Snape finally said, voice dripping with impatience, and smug superiority.

Hermione stood immediately, looking a bit flustered.  "Yes, of course."

Harry grabbed her wrist, shaking his head.  "Don't.  Hermione, he's a Death Eater."

She hesitated for a moment, looking at Snape cautiously, and then looking over at Severus.  He seemed to be at just as much of a loss, however.

"Harry also knows," Snape said calmly, "that I've been working with the Order of the Phoenix to get rid of the Dark Lord for many years, now."

"You're not a very good spy, are you?" Harry accused bitterly.  "Not if Dumbledore ends up dead."

Snape flinched, but his eyes were unfathomable pools of darkness.  "There was nothing I could do to save him."

"I don't believe you," Harry said.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning."  Snape rolled his eyes.  "Perhaps that is why you're such an abysmal student."

"Perhaps it's because you're a poor teacher," Harry replied coldly.

Hermione sighed and walked over to untie Snape.  "Harry, I'm beginning to think you're paranoid.  Would Dumbledore honestly place him in such a position unless there was a great deal of trust between them?  After all, Dumbledore is a Legilimens, if it comes down to it."

Harry just curled up on the couch, sulking.  "Yes, and Snape is an expert Occlumens.  Enough to fool Voldemort and Dumbledore, at least, even if he's just as incapable of teaching it as anything else."

"That's right, blame me for all of your failings, Potter."  Snape walked over to the table, still laden with food that replenished itself magically and stayed fresh as long as it was there.

"You always do your best to make sure I fail, so why not?"

James stood.  "Right.  You, bitter old man, shut up and eat.  You, bitter young man who will some day be my son if we don't all die while trying to save the world, just ignore him.  We've got things to do, and no time for bickering over them."

"I wouldn't mind more time," Harry said softly.

"I believe I have met your condition for my release?" Snape finally said, voice dripping with impatience, and smug superiority.

Hermione stood immediately, looking a bit flustered.  "Yes, of course."

Harry grabbed her wrist, shaking his head.  "Don't.  Hermione, he's a Death Eater."

She hesitated for a moment, looking at Snape cautiously, and then looking over at Severus.  He seemed to be at just as much of a loss, however.

"Harry also knows," Snape said calmly, "that I've been working with the Order of the Phoenix to get rid of the Dark Lord for many years, now."

"You're not a very good spy, are you?" Harry accused bitterly.  "Not if Dumbledore ends up dead."

Snape flinched, but his eyes were unfathomable pools of darkness.  "There was nothing I could do to save him."

"I don't believe you," Harry said.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning."  Snape rolled his eyes.  "Perhaps that is why you're such an abysmal student."

"Perhaps it's because you're a poor teacher," Harry replied coldly.

Hermione sighed and walked over to untie Snape.  "Harry, I'm beginning to think you're paranoid.  Would Dumbledore honestly place him in such a position unless there was a great deal of trust between them?  After all, Dumbledore is a Legilimens, if it comes down to it."

Harry just curled up on the couch, sulking.  "Yes, and Snape is an expert Occlumens.  Enough to fool Voldemort and Dumbledore, at least, even if he's just as incapable of teaching it as anything else."

"That's right, blame me for all of your failings, Potter."  Snape walked over to the table, still laden with food that replenished itself magically and stayed fresh as long as it was there.

"You always do your best to make sure I fail, so why not?"

James stood.  "Right.  You, bitter old man, shut up and eat.  You, bitter young man who will some day be my son if we don't all die while trying to save the world, just ignore him.  We've got things to do, and no time for bickering over them."

"I wouldn't mind more time," Harry said softly.

Everyone paused and looked around.

"Didn't you all just do that already, just now?" Ron asked.

"What's happening?" Lily asked, watching as one of the walls shimmered for no reason and then returned to normal.

"Oh no," Hermione whispered.  "It's happening here, too."

"What is it?" Severus asked, looking around.  "Will it keep happening?"

"We've stretched the fabric of reality too far," Hermione said.  "I don't know what will happen, not for certain, but it can't be good."

"What is it?" Severus asked, looking around.  "Will it keep happening?"

"We've stretched the fabric of reality too far," Hermione said.  "I don't know what will happen, not for certain, but it can't be good."

"Is this the end of the universe you were talking about?" Remus asked, frowning and trying to ignore the repetition.

Hermione nodded.  "At first I was the only one who noticed it.  I couldn't figure out why, and that's when I started researching time travel."

"Congratulations," Snape said, sitting down with a plate of food.  "You're the one who will destroy the universe and everything in it, because you had to meddle in time."

"You said it was the other Hermione, the one from your own time, who started it because of Dumbledore's death."

"You're both still the same person, even if it doesn't seem like it to you," he explained patiently (for him).  "It may not seem like it, since you've got different experiences, but you're still the same Hermione Granger.  You're still a witch, you're still an annoying know-it-all, you still think Harry is a generally good person even if he is a bit slow about the obvious, and you've still got a crush on Ron Weasley for some unfathomable reason."

Hermione turned pink.

"You're still a witch, you're still an annoying know-it-all, you still think Harry is a generally good person even if he is a bit slow about the obvious, and you've still got a crush on Ron Weasley for some unfathomable reason."

"Hey!" shouted Ron.  That wasn't a skip in time or whatever!"

"No.  I just enjoyed saying it," Snape replied with a smug grin.  "In fact, I think I'll say it again, just for emphasis, and to see how many shades of red Miss Granger can turn.  You're still a witch, you're still an annoying know-it-all, you still think Harry is a generally good person even if he is a bit slow about the obvious, and you've still got a crush on Ron Weasley for some unfathomable reason."

"I've got the picture!" Hermione shouted, face so red it could have been used to direct traffic.

"I think we all do," Severus said.  "Did she really deserve that?"

"Trust me, she did," Snape answered and then proceeded to devour the food on his plate.

"No.  I just enjoyed saying it," Snape replied with a smug grin.  "In fact, I think I'll say it again, just for emphasis, and to see how many shades of red Miss Granger can turn.  You're still a witch, you're still an annoying know-it-all, you still think Harry is a generally good person even if he is a bit slow about the obvious, and you've still got a crush on Ron Weasley for some unfathomable reason."

"I've got the picture!" Hermione shouted, face so red it could have been used to direct traffic.

"I think we all do," Severus said.  "Did she really deserve that?"

"Trust me, she did," Snape answered, and then stared at the food on his plate.  "Damn it, I just ate all of this.  Must I begin all over again?"

Sirius snickered.  "You'll get fat, eating so much.  Might improve your disposition."

"Let's not start things between you two, again," Lily said, pushing Sirius on the arm.  "We've got a world to save, remember?"

"Yes," he conceded, "but what can we really do, now?"

It was a question that everyone was wondering.  What now?  They all turned to Hermione and looked at her expectantly.

"I'm thinking," she said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other and back again.

"Right," Snape said, still eyeing his plate.  "I suggest you all dig in.  It will be a while before Miss Granger can come up with an original thought."

"I'm really starting to hate you," Hermione muttered darkly.

"So am I," Severus said, looking as if he were trying to swallow a bug.

"You," Snape gestured to Hermione, "need to learn that life is not a popularity contest.  And you," he gestured toward his younger self, "well, that comes as no surprise to me."

"I hate to agree with the old man," James said, before that could go any further.  "But we should all probably eat.  We won't accomplish anything if we sit around grumpy because we haven't eaten."

"I'm really starting to hate you," Hermione muttered darkly.

"So am I," Severus said, looking as if he were trying to swallow a bug.

Everyone paused again.

"Well, that was all very out of context," James said brightly.  "Shall we eat, before we have to repeat everything again?"

"We can try," Ron said, hurrying over to the table, just in case it disappeared.


	27. Chapter 27

"When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."

 

 

## Chapter Twenty-Seven

## With All This Déjà vu, How Will We Do Anything?

 

Hermione was no good for a very long time after that.  She paced around the room.  She sat down a lot.  She would stand after sitting, and look as if she were about to say something important, but it just evolved into more pacing in the end.  Eventually everyone ignored it, deciding to play games in the corner and conspire to stick signs on Snape's back.  By that time, even Severus was tired of his older self's attitude and joined in on the planning.

"Is she okay?" Sirius asked, nudging Ron in the arm with his elbow.  "Does she do this a lot?"

Ron shrugged and whispered back, "I'm not sure.  Despite what the old man said about her having a crush on me, we haven't spent a lot of time together.  She's more friends with my sister than me."

Sirius watched her do the same thing over again and frowned.  "How do we know she's not trapped in one of those time warps?"

"Well," Ron said, "we're not all repeating the same things over and over.  Not more than usual, at least."

Remus leaned in.  "What if it's just on her?  Snape did say she's the one who started the whole thing, so whatever is affecting time might be affecting her more strongly."

"Do you actually trust Snape?" Harry chimed in.  "He might have said all that, just because he's hungry for all we know."

Severus shook his head.  "Even I don't know if we should, or not.  I've never been one to stick my neck out for anyone.  And I never did have much respect for Dumbledore.  After all, he let you lot get away with just about everything under the sun and just told me to be patient and be the better man.  Not much comfort when one is suffering public humiliation."

Remus leaned in.  "What if it's just on her?  Snape did say she's the one who started the whole thing, so whatever is affecting time might be affecting her more strongly."

"Do you actually trust Snape?" Harry chimed in.  "He might have said all that, just because he's hungry for all we know."

Severus shook his head.  "Even I don't know if we should, or not.  I've never been one to stick my neck out for anyone.  And I never did have much respect for Dumbledore.  After all, he let you lot get away with just about everything under the sun and just told me to be patient and be the better man.  Not much comfort when one is suffering public humiliation."

They all wore similar looks of annoyance, but continued otherwise as if it hadn't happened.

"It's in the past, right?" James said.

Severus looked at James with a frown.  "Do you honestly think it can be that easy?  After the hell you put me through, especially in our fifth year?  Do you think a little kindness over a couple of days can sweep that under the rug?"

"One could hope," James said with a grin.  "Really, though.  If we get the chance, I want to spend a lot more time making it up to you.  I don't think Sirius is as serious about it, but..."

James was pelted with popcorn from the direction of Remus and Sirius.

"No one can be more Sirius than me!" Sirius said.

"One could hope," James said with a grin.  "Really, though.  If we get the chance, I want to spend a lot more time making it up to you.  I don't think Sirius is as serious about it, but..."

James was pelted with popcorn from the direction of Remus and Sirius.

"No one can be more Sirius than me!" Sirius said.

"One could hope," James said with a grin.  "Really, though.  If we get the chance, I want to spend a lot more time making it up to you.  I don't think Sirius is as serious about it, but..."

James was pelted with popcorn from the direction of Remus and Sirius.

"No one can be more Sirius than me!" Sirius said.

"Did that just happen THREE times?" Sirius then demanded, looking like he wanted to throw something.

James dropped the popcorn he'd been about to throw back at Sirius for his pun.  After hearing it three times in a row, he just wanted to give up.  "Isn't there anything we can do about this?  How long will we wait, while Hermione thinks?"

"What if she really is trapped in some twisted time loop, and the world comes to an end because of it?" Ron asked.  "Should I risk going to ask her?  I mean, what if she's still thinking and I mess her up and she loses her train of thought?  And, if she is trapped in a time loop, would asking her about it really snap her out of it?"

"You're going to work yourself into your own set of mental circles, trying to figure that out," Sirius said, shaking his head.  "Relax.  If she's stuck, there's nothing we can do about it.  If she's not, she'll say something when she's ready."

They watched her pace some more, and sit down, and pace again, and sit down.

"So.  Anybody for a game of Exploding Snap?"

"Yeah."

"I'm in."

"Okay, sure."

"I've never played it before."

"It's easy."

"We'll teach you, no problem."

The game was aborted before it could even start by a loud bang.

"So.  Anybody for a game of Exploding Snap?"

"Yeah."

"I'm in."

"Okay, sure."

"I've never played it before."

"It's easy."

"We'll teach you, no problem."

The game was aborted (again) before it could even start by (another) loud bang.

"We're not doing that again," said Ron.  "Those time thingies make me queasy."

No one was paying any attention to him, though.  The loud bang had come from the door being flung open by two wizards, who stood ominously in the doorway.  One, the shorter one with a pointy nose, two large front teeth, and beady little eyes, stood at the front and held out a hand to keep the door from rebounding off the wall and shutting on them.  The other was tall, with black hair and burning red eyes.

It was Voldemort.

No.  It was Professor Riddle.  He wasn't quite as inhuman as the Voldemort that Harry or Snape was familiar with.

He stood there with his wand at the ready, smiling in triumph.

"Dumbledore is dead, the school is mine, and now I shall kill you all," he laughed.

"What, again?" Snape asked, popping a grape into his mouth casually.

The Marauders were almost as fast as Harry in pulling out their wands and aiming at their adversary.  It was lucky that the four of them were ready, at least, when Snape's response caused everyone involved to stare at him in disbelief at how casual he was.

"What?  I have no wand, I'm essentially helpless, and I'd be facing nearly the same thing upon my return home because of Bellatrix's spectacular failure.  I've decided that if anyone is going to kill me, I'd just as soon they get it over with.  Besides that, _he_ is not the Dark Lord I've served all these years.  He is weak from years of teaching.  The man I know would not have hesitated to announce his presence and intent to a rabble of children.  He would have stricken us down, all of us, before anyone could raise a wand in defense."

As Snape spoke, he caught Harry's eye, and there was a blinding moment of clarity in Harry's mind.  It was a distraction, so that everyone in the room would have the best chance possible to defend themselves.  The moment was gone in an instant, a mere fraction of the time Snape had spent talking--

"Dumbledore is dead, the school is mine, and now I shall kill you all," he laughed.

"What, again?" Snape asked, popping a grape into his mouth casually.

The Marauders were almost as fast as Harry in pulling out their wands and aiming at their adversary.  It was lucky that the four of them were ready, at least, when Snape's response caused everyone involved to stare at him in disbelief at how casual he was.

"What?  I have no wand, I'm essentially helpless, and I'd be facing nearly the same thing upon my return home because of Bellatrix's spectacular failure.  I've decided that if anyone is going to kill me, I'd just as soon they get it over with.  Besides that, _he_ is not the Dark Lord I've served all these years.  He is weak from years of teaching.  The man I know would not have hesitated to announce his presence and intent to a rabble of children.  He would have stricken us down, all of us, before anyone could raise a wand in defense."

This time, though, there was no moment.  Snape hadn't so much as glanced at Harry, but Harry remembered.  He kept his wand trained on Voldemort, preparing himself for the distraction he knew was about to ensue as the identity of Voldemort's companion sunk in with the others.

"You think I'm weak?" Voldemort demanded, advancing on Snape and nearly forgetting the rest of the room in his need to prove himself.  _"Crucio!"_

Snape crumpled, but everyone else advanced.

"Stop it, or we'll kill you!" James ordered, roaring like a lion.

"No threats!  Just do it!" Harry cried, before he began a curse of his own.

It died upon his lips as a second Cruciatus Curse was leveled upon him, this time from the man who still stood in the doorway.  Harry writhed on the floor, dropping his wand.

Everyone turned toward the second man, to stop him, but half the room stopped in very predictable shock.

"Peter!" Remus cried out, eyes wide.  "But, you're dead!"

"I'm full of surprises," Peter said, turning his wand upon his old friend.

It took a minute for everyone to realize that the Peter Pettigrew before them was quite a bit older than their recently deceased friend.  They were too stunned to see him at all, let alone working for Voldemort.

"I'm not," Harry panted and pulled himself up so he was leaning on his elbows, "not afraid...of you."

"You should be," Voldemort said, walking over and stepping on one of Harry's hands, grinding his heel in and grinning as he heard bones snap.

Harry gritted his teeth.  In his own time, Voldemort had been revived and made invincible to the spell that protected him by his mother's sacrifice.    His scar burned so badly that he felt like his head might split open, and so the pain in his hand was almost like a splash of cold water, knocking him to his senses.

If the spell was still upon Harry, and this alternate version of Voldemort did not have the same protection, what would happen if Harry touched him?  With malicious glee, Harry reached under Voldemort's robe to grab his ankle.  It would either work, or he'd at least try to pull his hand free.

Voldemort screamed.  "What is this?  Let go!  LET GO OF ME!"

Harry saw how his touch was burning Voldemort's skin and he grinned mirthlessly.  "I may not be able to kill you entirely like this, but I'll happily make you suffer."

Peter hesitated a moment, as did everyone else in the room, before he came to the rescue of his master.  _"Imperio!"_

Harry knew what to expect.  He was familiar with feeling, and prepared for the joy in the thought of simply letting go, and how all he wanted to do in the world right now was to let go and stop hurting the man who stood over him.  How delightful it would be to simply obey and let go...

He'd resisted before, and he did again this time.  It became harder and harder to refuse, until suddenly the curse was lifted.

The Marauders, Severus, Lily, and Ron had all rushed Peter, attacking him physically to stop him. It worked, obviously, but they'd forgotten the other factor in the fight.

Voldemort kicked Harry in the face and yanked his foot free, and then looked down into Harry's eyes with burning hatred as he directed his wand upon the prone boy.  "You're too dangerous to let live," he said.  _"Avada Ke--"_

"NO!" Hermione screamed.  She'd been still, too shocked to move the entire time, but she drowned out the words of the killing curse even as it hit Harry and--

With malicious glee, Harry reached under Voldemort's robe to grab his ankle.  It would either work, or he'd at least try to pull his hand free.

Voldemort screamed.  "What is this?  Let go!  LET GO OF ME!"

Harry saw how his touch was burning Voldemort's skin and he grinned mirthlessly.  "I may not be able to kill you entirely like this, but I'll happily make you suffer."

Peter hesitated a moment, as did everyone else in the room, before he came to the rescue of his master.  _"Imperio!"_

Harry knew what to expect.  He was familiar with feeling, and prepared for the joy in the thought of simply letting go, and how all he wanted to do in the world right now was to let go and stop hurting the man who stood over him.  How delightful it would be to simply obey and let go...

"This will not happen!" Hermione shouted, pointing her wand at Voldemort.  _"Iterum Cesium!"_

Something shattered explosively in both Voldemort's and Peter's pockets, giving off little puffs of what looked almost like smoke, and they both vanished.

"You saved my life," Harry said, looking at Hermione.  "How did you do that?"

"It's only temporary," she said.  "I have to hurry.  Everyone, hand me all of the devices.  The eggs, I mean," she corrected, when she received a couple of blank looks.

"What are you going to do with them?" Ron asked, frowning.

"I've got to destroy them all," she answered.  "Now."

"You saved my life," Harry said, looking at Hermione.  "How did you do that?"

"It's only temporary," she said.  "I have to hurry.  Everyone, hand me all of the devices.  The eggs, I mean," she corrected, when she received a couple of blank looks.

"What are you going to do with them?" Ron asked, frowning.

"I've got to destroy them all," she answered.  "Now."

"Won't that kill you?"  Ron was looking at her as if she were insane.

"Possibly.  I have to take that risk, though.  If I don't, everyone will die!"

"Won't that kill you?"  Ron was looking at her as if she were insane.

"Possibly.  I have to take that risk, though.  If I don't, everyone will die!"

"Won't that kill you?"

"This whole thing will kill me if things don't stop repeating!  I'll die of insanity, I swear!"  Hermione began pulling at her hair in frustration.

"You've got to stop it at the source," Lily said kindly.  "It's your other self who began all of this, yes?  So, we've got to stop her from wanting to, and we've got to do it before she can even begin the research into it."

"The library," Harry said.  "We've got to get into the library, quickly."

"No, not quickly," Hermione said, looking exhausted.  "We need one more trip through time, and then I'll destroy all of the eggs.  I've just got to hope that reality without all of this meddling will be worth saving."

"I'm sure it will be," Lily said.  "No matter how dark things get, there is always some light, some thing of worth, that cancels out that darkness."

"You've got to stop it at the source," Lily said kindly.  "It's your other self who began all of this, yes?  So, we've got to stop her from wanting to, and we've got to do it before she can even begin the research into it."

"The library," Harry said.  "We've got to get into the library, quickly."

"No, not quickly," Hermione said, looking exhausted.  "We need one more trip through time, and then I'll destroy all of the eggs.  I've just got to hope that reality without all of this meddling will be--oh, let's just go already!"

"Who?  You and who else?"

"Me, and Ron," she said.  "We'll be back immediately."

Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist and vanished, reappearing an instant later.  Ron had a look on his face that was something between surprise and contentment, and he looked a bit rumpled around the edges.

"You're done?" Harry asked.

Hermione just nodded and collected all of the time travel devices.  "Goodbye, everyone.  I wish the future could be brighter, for you all."

It's all she said, and then she pointed her wand at the devices and


	28. Chapter 28

This is not the end.  This is not the beginning.  This is merely an interlude through which all things progress.

 

## Chapter Twenty-Eight

## Once Into a Vanishing Horizon

 

Hermione didn't think of it as suicide.  It was self-sacrifice.  Ron had called it suicide, of course, when they'd gone back to leave another Hermione, in another time, a note that would hopefully end this all.

Ron had said many other things, and her lips still tingled from the kiss she'd used to shut him up and get him to cooperate.  She hadn't wanted to die without having been kissed at least once in her life.  That would have been worse than a tragedy.

It would have been worse than the situation already was.

She wished there could have been more, but time was already gone, and the eggs had been destroyed, and she felt a giddy sort of rushing in the pit of her stomach as a succession of images seemed to swirl around her all at once and finally resolve into one nightmarish vision.

"The spell backfired," Professor Riddle was saying.  "Kill the boy.  Don't worry about Miss Granger, she'll be dead soon enough."

She heard someone utter the killing curse, and heard a thud beside her.  She didn't even have the strength to look.

"This," she whispered soundlessly.

"She's trying to say something," a man said in a cold voice.  She recognized it vaguely.  Malfoy.  Was it the older Malfoy, or was it Draco?

"Bring her here," Professor Riddle commanded.

Long hair tickled her cheek and she forced her eyes to focus.  Ah yes, Lucius Malfoy.  She wondered if Draco was among them, or if he was too young.

She was placed in Professor Riddle's arms, and he looked intently into her eyes.  "What is it?"  He brushed hair away from her face with surprisingly gentle fingers.  "What are you trying to say?"

"This," she whispered again.  "Is not."

"What is it not?" he asked, almost kindly, as he watched her struggle to get out her last words.

She rallied the last of her strength, projecting the words at him more as a spiritual force than through true speech.  "This is not the end."

 

Hermione wiped away the tears, sniffling softly as she opened the book.  It had taken quite a fight to convince Professor McGonagall to give her permission to check out the book from the library, but the new headmistress had finally relented.

"You're smart enough to realize, after reading it, why you can't do anything with it." Professor McGonagall had said.  "Now out!  I've a lot of work to do."

"That's what she thinks," Hermione whispered to herself as she opened the book.  "I've got to at least try, and no one would blame me for it."

As the front cover opened, however, a bit of parchment fell out.

Hermione might have ignored it, but she'd caught her own name upon it.  She bent over and picked it up, wondering what on earth could be in this book that would--

Her thoughts froze as she recognized the handwriting as her own.  Her heart pounded so loudly as she read that she was almost surprised Madam Pince didn't throw her out for causing a disturbance.

 

 

_Dear Hermione,_

_I know what you're thinking, and I can't entirely blame you, but please trust me.  Don't do it._

_Please, just don't._

_I know that the only thing in your mind right now is that you can bring Professor Dumbledore back, but you should know more than anyone that if you did the consequences would be catastrophic.  You can't even imagine what it is like._

_It hurts to lose someone you know and love and respect so very much.  He was like a grandfather to you, and to everyone at Hogwarts.  Believe me, I know.  I'd do just about anything to bring him back, myself.  To have the power to do so, and yet restrain yourself even in the midst of grief is a challenge that no one should have to face, and yet you do._

_If you create the spell you intend, it will fall into the wrong hands.  You know whose hands I speak of, but I am afraid to put the name here, lest it draw his attention.  Just imagine what a world you would be in, if such a thing were to happen.  And believe me, it will happen._

_I beg you.  Look forward, not back.  Let this letter be the only paradox to remain the legacy of your grief._

_~H_

 

Hermione looked at the note, biting her lower lip, tears falling from her eyes faster than she could blink to clear them.  She knew that the note was right.

She slowly folded it in half and placed it back in the book, biting her lower lip.  For a minute she flipped through the book, not looking at it, but not willing to put it back, either.  She could so easily just give Dumbledore a similar note, persuading him not to leave Hogwarts that night, begging him--

He'd stay, she knew.  He'd stay, and he'd live, and--

No.  He'd approved of her meddling in time to clear Sirius Black and Buckbeak, but that was different.  She wasn't sure how, but it was.  Even in the midst of her grief, she knew it was.

She finally pulled out the note and set the book back on the shelf.  She then walked out of the library and into the bathroom, pulling out her wand as soon as she was sure she was alone.  " _Incendio_ ," she whispered, setting the paper alight.

The paradox would die with her.

A few minutes later she walked into the Gryffindor common room.  The mood was so somber that it made her wonder again if she'd made the right choice.

"There you are," Harry said, walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder.  "Are you ready?"

Hermione nodded.  She could still go back...

Ron joined them, clasping her hand tightly.  No more words were said as they climbed through the hole behind the portrait of the Fat Lady.  It was time to say goodbye to Albus Dumbledore.


End file.
